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Chicken Pie

A savory pie with chicken joints, forcemeat balls, eggs, ham or bacon, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken 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. Dredge the chicken joints lightly with salt, white pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne.

  2. In a pie dish, place the forcemeat balls and halved hard-boiled eggs.

  3. Lay the seasoned chicken pieces on top, along with the ham or bacon slices.

Bake and serve

  1. Add the water and white gravy.

  2. Cover with puff pastry and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provides the main meat, which cooks through in the oven under the pastry.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, set texture and richness to the filling when sliced.
White gravy
Adds moisture so the filling stays juicy during baking.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky top crust that browns in the oven.
Ham or bacon
Adds savoury, salty flavour that seasons the chicken and filling.

The step that matters

Covering with puff pastry and baking. The pastry must be sealed over the dish so steam builds inside and cooks the chicken through, while the pastry bakes crisp and golden rather than soggy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, nutmeg, pepper, egg, ham):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, nutmeg, pepper, egg, ham. 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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