Why it works: Mace and nutmeg 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 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the chicken
Boil the chickens in water just enough to cover them for 40 minutes.
Skim the water carefully and remove the chickens to a dish.
Cut the chickens into serving pieces.
Assemble the pie
Line a deep dish with a thick pastry.
Layer the chicken pieces, hearts, and livers in the dish, sprinkling each layer with flour, salt, and pepper.
Add a thin shaving of butter on each piece of chicken.
Use more spice, flour, and butter on the top layer than on the previous ones.
Pour in the boiling liquid from the chicken until it is just below the top.
Cover with the upper crust and seal the edges with flour and water.
Prick the top with a knife and decorate with crust leaves.
Bake
Bake for 2 hours at 300°F (150°C).
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.
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Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,557 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Flour and butter 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
- Chickens
- Provide the main meat, which cooks gently in the pie and becomes tender.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid and helps seal the edges of the crust.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the chicken layers as they bake.
- Mace (optional)
- Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the chicken layers.
The step that matters
Pour in the boiling liquid. Filling with boiling liquid to just below the top adds moisture and body to the pie, so it does not dry out during the long bake and the filling sets as it cools.
Swap the mace
The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, pepper, butter, nutmeg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, pepper, butter, nutmeg. 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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