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Chicken Turnovers

Chicken turnovers are pastry pockets filled with finely chopped roast chicken, seasoned and thickened with flour, then fried or baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Turnovers

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. Chop the cold roast chicken very fine.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the chicken with a little water, gravy, or butter.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Dissolve the flour in a little water and add it to the mixture.

  5. Heat through and let cool.

Assemble and cook

  1. Roll out the pie crust thinly.

  2. Cut the crust into rounds the size of a saucer.

  3. Wet the edges of the rounds with cold water.

  4. Place a large spoonful of the chicken mixture on one half of each round.

  5. Fold the other half over.

  6. Pinch the edges to seal.

  7. Fry in hot drippings or fat until golden brown.

  8. Bake in a moderate oven 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Thickens the moisture in the filling so it holds together inside the pastry.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling, contributing flavor and moistness.
Plain pie crust
Forms the sealed pastry shell that encloses the filling and browns during cooking.
Drippings or fat
Frying medium that browns the outside of the turnovers and adds flavor.

The step that matters

Pinch the edges to seal. If the edges are not sealed well, the filling can leak out during frying or baking, and the turnovers may open and lose their moisture.

“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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