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Chicken and Ham Pie

A savory pie filled with chicken, ham, veal, mushrooms, shallot, parsley, and hard‑boiled egg yolks, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chicken and Ham Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble the pie

  1. Line the bottom of a pie dish with alternating slices of veal and ham.

  2. Season the veal and ham with mushrooms, shallot, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  3. Add a little white sauce, stock, or water.

  4. Arrange the chicken pieces neatly on top.

  5. Sprinkle with more seasoning and add the yolks of hard-boiled eggs.

  6. Spread a little more sauce over everything.

  7. Cover with puff pastry, glaze with beaten egg, and decorate the top.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  4. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and moist during the long, covered bake.
Veal
Adds tender meat that softens and enriches the juices in the pie.
Ham
Contributes savoury, salty flavour to the filling.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy texture to the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp crust that puffs and browns in the oven.
White sauce
Keeps the filling moist and binds the layers together when used.

The step that matters

Covering and glazing the pastry. The pastry must seal fully around the edge so steam stays in and the filling cooks through. A thin, even egg glaze helps the crust brown evenly in the hot oven.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, veal, ham, mushroom, shallot, pepper, sauce):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, ham, mushroom, shallot, pepper, sauce. 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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