Why it works: Chicken and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,243 recipes. Both carry 3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. 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
Parboil and cut up the chickens neatly.
Dry the chicken pieces and set them over low heat for a few minutes.
Assemble and bake
Place the veal stuffing at the bottom of a baking dish.
Arrange the chicken pieces and dressed ham on top of the stuffing.
Cover with pastry and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 to 2 hours.
Serve
Serve with well-seasoned gravy, not too thick.
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.
-
Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,243 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).
-
Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,497 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
-
Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,264 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chickens
- Provide the main meat, which is parboiled first so it cooks through in the oven.
- Veal stuffing or forcemeat
- Forms a moist base layer that sits beneath the chicken and ham.
- Dressed ham
- Adds salty, savoury flavour to the meat layer.
- Pastry
- Encloses the filling and browns in the oven as a crust.
The step that matters
Drying the chicken pieces. Surface moisture left on parboiled chicken dilutes browning and can make the pastry soggy, so patting the pieces dry before they go into the dish helps the crust brown well.
“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.
More chicken pie recipes
You might also like
Chicken Broth257 recipes
Chicken Soup156 recipes
Creamed Chicken89 recipes
Chicken Panada75 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.