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Chicken Pot Pie

A savory pie with chicken, pork, oysters, and butter baked in a biscuit dough crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Chicken Pot Pie

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 Pot Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken pieces in water for about 20 minutes until partially cooked, then remove from water.

Assemble the pie

  1. Fry the salt pork in a pan and place it at the bottom of a pie dish.

  2. Arrange the chicken pieces on top of the pork.

  3. Add 3 pints of water, 2 ounces of butter, and 1 teaspoon of pepper.

  4. Cover with a pie crust made like biscuit dough.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1 hour.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Pork + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,255 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Chicken
Provides the main meat, which partly cooks in boiling water before baking.
Salt pork
Fries to release fat and flavor that seasons the base of the pie.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the liquid filling.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a gravy-like filling as it heats.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and bakes into a crisp, golden top.

The step that matters

Covering with the biscuit-style crust. The crust must seal the filling so steam is trapped while it bakes, and it needs to be cooked through so the bottom and top do not turn soggy or raw.

“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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