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Flat Chicken or Rabbit Pic

A puff pastry pie filled with chicken or rabbit, sweetbreads, mushrooms, truffles, and morels.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Flat Chicken or Rabbit Pic

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Blanch the chicken or rabbit pieces and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Place a layer of light forcemeat at the bottom of a deep dish.

  3. Add some of the meat, followed by sweetbreads, mushrooms, truffles, and morels.

  4. Top with the remaining meat and cover with puff pastry.

Bake and serve

  1. Brush the pastry with beaten egg and decorate with pastry leaves.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

  3. Once baked, pour in cullis and serve.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together756 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken or rabbit
Provides the main meat, which is the body of the pie.
Light forcemeat
Forms a soft, tender layer that keeps the filling moist.
Puff pastry
Bakes into a crisp, flaky, golden crust that encloses the filling.
Egg
Brushed on the pastry, it helps the crust turn golden brown in the oven.
Truffles
Add a deep, earthy aroma to the filling.
Morels
Add a meaty texture and earthy flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Baking the pie until golden brown. The pastry must bake through so its layers set and crisp, while the filling heats without drying out. Checking colour and timing helps avoid a pale, soggy crust or overcooked meat.

“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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