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Chicken Pie, a LA Heine

A layered chicken pie with veal, ham, mushrooms, parsley, white sauce, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Pie, a LA Heine

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. Cut the chickens into small pieces as for fricassee.

Assemble the pie

  1. Cover the bottom of a pie dish with layers of veal and ham, alternating them.

  2. Season the layers with chopped mushrooms, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  3. Add a little white sauce over the layers.

  4. Arrange the chicken pieces neatly in the dish.

  5. If using, place a plover's egg in each cavity around the chicken.

  6. Repeat the seasoning and add more white sauce.

  7. Top with thin slices of dressed ham.

Top and bake

  1. Cover the pie with puff pastry and decorate with leaf shapes.

  2. Brush the pastry with egg wash.

  3. Bake for 1.5 hours.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

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, and its pieces cook through within the pie.
Veal
Adds tender meat that fills the layers and contributes savoury flavour.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the layers and the top.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess that keeps the layers from drying out.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp crust that puffs and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Brush the pastry with egg wash. Egg wash coats the pastry so it browns evenly and glossy in the oven. Skipping it leaves the crust pale and dull.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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