Name: Big Girls, Test Kitchen: James Beard Pot PieOld-Fashioned Rich Chicken Pot PiePie Crust
Yield: Serves 6Makes enough for one pie
Ingredients: 1 chicken, 3 to 4 pounds; 12 small white onions; 2 carrots cut in thin slices; 1 clove garlic, crushed; 1/4 cup chopped parsley; 3 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; 1 cup heavy cream; salt and freshly ground pepper; 1/2 teaspoon Tabasco; Rich Pie Crust*; 1 egg yolk blended with 1 tablespoon cream; 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon sugar; 10 tablespoons cold butter, cut into chunks; 1 egg yolk; 1-2 tablespoons cold water, as needed; Combine the flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor. Pulse to combine. Add the cold butter and pulse again, just until the whole mixture resembles crumbs. Add the egg yolk and process until a ball comes together. If it hasn’t completely come together, slowly add 1-2 tablespoons of water, processi; Gather the dough and form it into a ball, then press it into a disk. Refrigerate for at least an hour before rolling out on a floured surface.

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, carrot, garlic, parsley, butter, flour):

Thymefits better
Cuminfits better
Marjoramfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, carrot, garlic, parsley, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Pie Crust	not in our table	0
Water	not in our table	0

Big Girls, Test Kitchen: James Beard Pot PieOld-Fashioned Rich Chicken Pot PiePie Crust