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Chicken Pie

A savory pie made with whole or jointed chicken, spices, butter, stock, wine, egg yolks, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. 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 chicken

  1. Clean and singe the chickens.

  2. If the chickens are young, keep them whole and truss as for boiling.

  3. If the chickens are large, cut them into joints and remove the skin.

  4. Wash and dry the chicken pieces.

  5. Season the chicken pieces with salt, white pepper, grated nutmeg, and mace.

Assemble the pie

  1. If the chickens are whole, place a bit of butter rolled in flour and some mixed spices inside them.

  2. Lay the chickens in a dish with the livers, gizzards, and hearts, all well seasoned.

  3. Add ½ pint of white stock, ⅓ cup of white wine, 1 tablespoon of lemon pickle (or pickled mushrooms), and the yolks of 5 hard-boiled eggs.

  4. Cover with puff pastry and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

Add the macaroni (optional)

  1. Wash 2-3 ounces of macaroni and break it into small bits.

  2. Simmer the macaroni bits in milk and water for 30 minutes, then drain.

  3. Add the drained macaroni to the dish with the chickens and ¾ ounce of butter.

  4. Omit the lemon pickle or pickled mushrooms if using macaroni.

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 + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the filling and becomes tender as it cooks gently in the dish.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and thicken it as they set with the heat.
White stock
Provides the moisture that becomes the sauce around the chicken.
Butter
Rolled in flour, it thickens the juices and adds richness.
Puff pastry
Covers the dish, rising and browning into a crisp golden top.

The step that matters

Cover with puff pastry and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour. The oven must be hot enough for the pastry to rise and brown while the chicken cooks through underneath. A cool oven leaves pale, soggy pastry and undercooked meat, so the pastry seal and oven heat matter most.

“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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