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A Chicken Pie

A savory pie with chicken and a force-meat filling of veal, suet, and aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a puff pastry crust.

  2. Season chicken pieces with pepper, salt, and mace.

  3. Prepare a force-meat by mixing veal, suet, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, anchovy, lemon peel, thyme, and egg yolk.

  4. Form some mixture into about 12 balls and set the rest aside.

Assemble

  1. Layer one chicken over the bottom of the dish.

  2. Add sweetbreads cut into 5-6 pieces, season with pepper and salt.

  3. Sprinkle truffles, morels, artichoke pieces, and cockscombs over the chicken.

  4. Top with the remaining chicken pieces.

  5. Pour in ½ pint of water and cover the pie.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden brown, then fill with gravy before serving.

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. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Chicken + thymetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 becomes tender as it cooks slowly in the pie.
Veal
Forms a finely ground force-meat that adds body and a soft, rich texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the force-meat moist and rich as it cooks.
Truffles
Contribute a strong earthy aroma that flavours the filling.
Morels
Add a deep, earthy flavour and a chewy texture to the filling.
Egg yolk
Binds the force-meat so it holds together when cooked.

The step that matters

Pour in the water and cover the pie. The water with the meat juices forms the gravy, and the sealed crust traps steam so the chicken cooks through gently. Too little liquid can leave the filling dry.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, veal, bread, anchovy, lemon, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, veal, bread, anchovy, lemon, thyme. 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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