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Chicken & Sweetcorn Pies

This fun and easy-to-make dish is perfect for getting kids aged 8-14 years busy in the kitchen

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sweetcorn and peas share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 49 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Makes 6
Prep25 min
Cook35 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F) and lightly brush a baking sheet with oil.

  2. Finely chop the cooked chicken breasts. Put them in a small pan with the sweetcorn, peas, double cream and Dijon mustard. Heat gently over medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring, until hot through to 165°F (74°C). Set aside to cool.

  3. On a flour-dusted surface, roll out the puff pastry to about 3 mm thick. Cut 6 rounds about 12 cm wide for the bases and 6 rounds about 10 cm wide for the lids.

  4. Place the larger rounds on the oiled baking sheet. Spoon the cooled filling onto the centre of each, leaving a 1 cm border.

  5. Brush the border of each base with beaten egg. Top with the smaller rounds and press the edges firmly together to seal.

  6. Brush the tops with more beaten egg and cut a small slit in the centre of each pie to let steam escape.

  7. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until deep golden and puffed. Let the pies rest on the tray for 5 minutes before serving.

By bbcgoodfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sweetcorn + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Chicken + peastop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,528 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Chicken + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Flour + eggtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together104,138 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + sweetcorntop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together111 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg share little aroma chemistry, yet 104,138 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, chicken, sweetcorn, peas, cream, egg):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, chicken, sweetcorn, peas, cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).