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Chicken Pot-pie

A baked chicken stew with potatoes, thickened gravy, and dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chicken Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Place the prepared hen in a deep kettle and season with salt. Cover with water.

  2. If desired, add a slice of pickled pork for flavor.

  3. Remove any scum as it reaches boiling point to ensure clear gravy.

  4. Add the halved potatoes about an hour before serving.

  5. Mix 3-4 tablespoons of flour with cold water to make a smooth paste, then stir it into the kettle to thicken the gravy.

  6. If the gravy is too thick, add boiling water as needed.

Make and cook the dumplings

  1. For the dumplings, sift 1 pint of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and a little salt together.

  2. Quickly mix with enough milk to form a dough, not batter.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of the dumpling mixture over the chicken.

  4. Cook slowly for 15 minutes without lifting the lid.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hen
Provides the meat and rich flavor that make up the body of the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as a paste and gives the dumplings their structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dumpling dough so the dumplings rise and turn light.
Potatoes
Absorb gravy flavor while cooking and add starch and body to the dish.

The step that matters

Keep the dumpling dough wet and handle it quickly. Mixing the dough quickly with just enough milk keeps it tender; overworking develops gluten and makes dumplings tough, while a dough that is too wet loses shape and turns gummy.

“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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