Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Chicken Pie— Baked
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the chicken
Boil the chickens in just enough water to cover them, seasoning with salt and celery if desired, until very tender.
Make a puff pastry.
Line a deep baking dish with the puff pastry.
Make the filling
Place the boiled chickens in the dish.
Thicken the cooking water with a little flour.
Add the oysters if desired. Bring the mixture to a boil.
Pour the mixture over the chickens in the dish.
Add a piece of butter about the size of half an egg.
Bake
Cover the pie with the pastry crust.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
-
Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,103 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,375 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,905 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Chickens
- Provide the main body of the pie, becoming tender from long gentle boiling.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce that holds the filling together.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the filling.
- Puff pastry
- Forms a flaky, golden crust that encloses the filling.
- Oysters
- Add a briny, savoury flavour to the filling.
The step that matters
Thicken the cooking water with flour. Flour must be cooked in hot liquid to swell its starch and thicken the sauce. Stirring it in smoothly and bringing the mixture to a boil ensures the filling sets rather than staying thin and floury-tasting.
Swap the celery
The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, oyster, butter, egg):
- Capersfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, oyster, butter, 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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