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Chicken and Ham Pie

A savory pie filled with shredded chicken, diced ham, carrots, onion, and broth, topped with a double crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. 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.

Make the filling

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

  2. In a saucepan, melt butter and sauté onion and carrots until soft.

  3. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute.

  4. Gradually add chicken broth, stirring until thickened.

  5. Add shredded chicken, diced ham, thyme, and pepper; mix well.

Assemble and bake

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

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

  3. Bake for 30-35 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. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the onion and carrots as they soften.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth sauce that holds the filling together.
Chicken broth
Provides liquid that cooks the flour into a thickened, moist filling.
Chicken
Supplies the main protein and substance of the filling.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the filling.
Carrots
Add sweetness and soft texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour. Flour must be cooked briefly in the butter before the broth is added, and the broth added gradually while stirring. This prevents lumps and lets starch swell evenly, so the filling thickens smoothly rather than staying thin or clumping.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, carrot, thyme, pepper, butter, 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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