Name: Aunt Abby's Chicken Pie
Ingredients: 2 plump, tender chickens; water (enough to cover the chickens); thin slices of sweet salt pork; small butter crackers (optional); coarse sea salt (to taste); prepared pie crust; cooked potatoes (optional)

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 ↓

Aunt Abby's Chicken Pie

Ingredients

2 plump, tender chickens
water (enough to cover the chickens)
thin slices of sweet salt pork
small butter crackers (optional)
coarse sea salt (to taste)
prepared pie crust
cooked potatoes (optional)

Directions

Prepare the chicken

Joint the chickens.
Stew them in barely enough water to cover for 30 minutes.
Remove the chickens from the broth.

Assemble the pie

Place them in a deep dish.
Layer the chicken with slices of salt pork and optional butter crackers.
Season the broth well.
Pour the broth over the chicken.
If desired, add a layer of cooked potatoes at the bottom of the dish.

Crust and bake

Prepare the top crust.
Wet the edge of the crust slightly.
Place the crust around the dish.
Seal the edges.
Decorate the top with pastry.

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.

Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,417 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,756 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).
Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

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 becomes tender from slow stewing in the broth.
Salt pork: Adds fat and savory flavor that enriches the chicken and broth.
Butter crackers: Absorb some broth and add richness and a buttery flavor to the layers.
Cooked potatoes: Add body and starch that help make the filling more substantial.

The step that matters

Season the broth well. Most of the flavor sits in the broth, since the chicken is stewed in little water. Seasoning it well before pouring it over the chicken keeps the filling from tasting bland.

“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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Aunt Abby's Chicken Pie