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Chicken and Ham Pie

A savory pie filled with shredded chicken, diced ham, onion, and a seasoned broth, encased in a double crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chicken and Ham Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a skillet, melt butter and sauté onion until translucent.

  3. Add shredded chicken and diced ham, stirring to combine.

  4. Sprinkle flour over the mixture and stir well.

  5. Pour in chicken broth, add salt, pepper, and thyme, and cook until thickened.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the filling into a pie crust and cover with another crust.

  2. Seal edges and cut slits in the top crust.

  3. Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body of the filling, as the bulk of the pie's protein and texture.
Ham
Adds salty, savory flavor that complements the chicken.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and carries the flavor of the onion as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a sauce that holds the filling together.
Chicken broth
Supplies moisture and savory flavor, becoming the sauce once thickened.

The step that matters

Thickening the filling. Flour must be stirred in evenly and the broth cooked until it thickens; if the filling is too thin it will leak and make the bottom crust soggy once baked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, butter, pepper, thyme, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, butter, pepper, thyme, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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