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Shredded Wheat Chicken Pie

A baked chicken pie made with shredded wheat biscuit crumbs, milk, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Shredded Wheat Chicken Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Scald the milk and add butter, crumbs, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cook for three minutes, then remove from heat and add chicken, parsley, and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Turn the mixture into a buttered dish and bake for 45 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Wheat + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Biscuit + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together204 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Wheat + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the mixture and the whites, folded in, lighten it and help it set.
Shredded wheat biscuit crumbs
Crumbs soak up the hot milk and add body to the filling.
Milk
Scalded milk forms the moist base that the crumbs absorb and the eggs set into.
Butter
Butter adds richness and fat that softens the texture of the filling.
Cooked chicken
Chicken is the main protein, giving the pie its bulk and savory flavor.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites hold air, and overmixing or stirring them vigorously deflates that foam, leaving a denser pie. Fold gently so the mixture stays light and rises evenly in the oven.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, butter, wheat, biscuit, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, butter, wheat, biscuit, egg. 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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