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Chicken Pie

Baked whole chickens stuffed with a forcemeat of French rolls, butter, egg, onion, parsley, thyme, and lemon peel, then larded and coated with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Chicken 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Stuff the chickens with a forcemeat made from French rolls, butter, egg, onion, parsley, thyme, and lemon peel.

  3. Lard the chickens and coat them with bread crumbs.

  4. Place a piece of fat over the breasts to prevent over-browning.

Bake and serve

  1. In a stewpan, melt 1 ounce of butter and place the chickens inside.

  2. Leave uncovered for a short time, then cover and bake for 1½ hours.

  3. Half an hour before serving, add the cream and baste thoroughly over a hotter fire.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Form the main body of the dish, providing the meat that cooks through during baking.
French rolls
Bread base for the forcemeat, giving the stuffing body and soaking up butter and egg.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the surface brown and the forcemeat stay moist.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat so the stuffing holds together when cooked.
Cream
Added late to baste the chickens, adding richness and a silkier, glossy finish.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and basting. Cream added too early can scorch or split on direct heat. Adding it half an hour before serving and basting over a hotter fire lets it form a glossy, lightly browned coating.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, egg, parsley, thyme, lemon, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, egg, parsley, thyme, lemon, cream. 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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