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Chicken Pie

A savory pie made with chicken, ham or bacon, force-meat, hard-boiled eggs, and a gravy base, baked with a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Season the cut-up chickens with white pepper, coarse sea salt, mace, and nutmeg.

  2. Layer the chicken, ham or bacon, force-meat, and hard-boiled eggs in a dish.

  3. Prepare gravy using veal or mutton bones, seasoned with herbs and onion.

Make the jelly

  1. If using a dish, fill it with gravy.

  2. If using a raised crust, strain the gravy and cool it until jelly-like.

  3. To clarify the jelly, boil it with whipped egg whites.

  4. Strain the clarified jelly through a fine sieve.

  5. For an alternative, layer seasoned fowl or veal bones in a dish.

  6. Scald parsley in milk.

  7. Add the scalded parsley to the meat with broth.

Finish and bake

  1. After baking, raise the crust.

  2. Pour in scalded cream mixed with butter and flour.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Young chickens
Forms the main body of the pie, providing the meat that is cooked in the filling.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, sliced texture and a mild richness to the layered filling.
Egg whites
Whipped and boiled with the gravy, they help clarify the jelly by trapping impurities.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carried into the cream and flour mixture for a smooth finish.
Flour
Thickens the scalded cream and butter mixture so it becomes smooth and body-rich.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the liquid poured into the pie.

The step that matters

Clarifying the jelly with egg whites. Whipped egg whites are boiled into the gravy so proteins coagulate and trap cloudy particles. Straining through a fine sieve then leaves a clear, set jelly. Skipping or rushing this step leaves a cloudy, less firm jelly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, mace, nutmeg, ham, meat, egg, veal):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mace, nutmeg, ham, meat, egg, veal. 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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