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Chicken Pie

A layered chicken and potato pie with butter crusts and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crust

  1. Mix a crust with sweet milk and shorten with butter.

  2. Line the sides of a milk pan with the crust, leaving the bottom unlined.

Layer and fill

  1. Layer chicken, potatoes, and dough cut into small strips in the pan.

  2. Add salt, pepper, butter, and bits of pickled pork between layers.

  3. Continue layering until the pan is filled.

  4. Pour in 1 pint of cold water and cover with an upper crust with a hole cut in it.

Cook and bake

  1. Cook for a while, then add 2 pints of hot water.

  2. Bake for 1 hour in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet milk
Moistens the dough so it can be shortened and shaped into a crust.
Butter
Shortens the crust and adds richness and tenderness as it melts.
Chicken
Provides the main meat filling that cooks through in the layers.
Potatoes
Add starchy bulk to the filling and absorb flavour from the liquid and fat.
Pickled pork
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the layers.

The step that matters

Add the hot water after the initial cook. Adding the hot water after the pie has begun cooking keeps the filling from being diluted from the start and helps the liquid stay in the pie as it bakes into a moist, set filling under the crust.

“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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