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Ass Chicken Pie

A pie made with whole chickens, seasoned, wrapped in puff pastry, baked with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Ass Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Season the chickens with pepper, salt, and mace.

  2. Place a piece of butter inside each chicken and lay them breast side up in a dish.

  3. Cover the chickens with a thin slice of bacon for flavor.

  4. Pour in 1 pint of strong gravy.

Bake

  1. Cover with puff pastry lid.

  2. Bake in a moderately heated oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked.

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

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

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Chickens
Form the main body of the pie and supply the meat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the chicken as it cooks.
Bacon
Adds savory fat that bastes the chicken and flavors the pie.
Strong gravy
Provides liquid and savory flavor that keeps the filling moist.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, browned crust that encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked. Whole chickens must reach a safe internal temperature throughout. Because the pie is covered, the cook cannot see the meat, so checking the thickest parts with a thermometer helps prevent undercooked or dry results.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, butter. 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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