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Chicken Pot Pie

A baked dish of cooked chicken in gravy topped with a batter crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Pot Pie

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicken Pot Pie

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 filling

  1. Cook the chicken until it falls off the bones, then drain the broth.

  2. Thicken the broth with 2 heaping tablespoons of flour blended with cold water, then boil.

  3. Place the chicken in a baking dish and pour the hot gravy over it. Season with salt and pepper.

Make the topping and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix 2 cups of flour, 2 tablespoons of butter, ½ teaspoon of salt, 1 beaten egg, and 1 cup of milk.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of baking powder to the batter and fold in gently.

  3. Drop the batter over the chicken and gravy, then bake immediately at 400°F (200°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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

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

Flour
Thickens the broth into gravy and gives the batter its structure.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, tenderising the batter topping.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the topping rise as it bakes.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a soft, tender batter.

The step that matters

Bake the batter immediately after dropping it on. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it meets liquid, so waiting lets the batter lose lift before it reaches the oven.

“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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