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Chicken Pie

A savory pie made with boiled chicken, ham, veal forcemeat, and a seasoned gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

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 the chicken

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

  2. Parboil the chickens in a small quantity of water until cooked; let them cool.

  3. Cut the chickens into neat joints.

  4. In the same boiling water, stew the heads, necks, and feet with onions and mace.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a pie dish, layer the chicken joints, dressed ham, and veal forcemeat balls.

  2. Season with white pepper, coarse sea salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Add a little gravy, but not too much.

  4. Cover the pie and decorate the top.

  5. Bake for 1.5 hours.

Finish the gravy

  1. Meanwhile, reduce the gravy from the heads by boiling to about 1 cup.

  2. Thicken the gravy with cream, flour, and grated lemon rind before serving.

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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat that forms the body of the pie.
Veal forcemeat balls
Add a rich, dense texture and savoury meatiness to the filling.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the thickened gravy.
Flour
Thickens the reduced gravy so it holds together when served.
Gravy (from boiled chicken heads)
Supplies moisture and concentrated flavour to the filling and sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing and thickening the gravy. Boiling the gravy down concentrates its flavour, and flour must be cooked through or it tastes raw and pastelike. Adding cream and flour to a boiling gravy can curdle or lump, so keep the heat gentle.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, mace, ham, veal, nutmeg, 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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