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Famous Chicken Pie

A baked chicken pie with a buttery sauce made from broth, cream, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Famous Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Cover the chicken with water and cook slowly until two-thirds done.

  2. Salt the broth to taste and continue cooking until the meat falls from the bones.

  3. Remove the chicken from the broth.

  4. Take out the bones.

  5. Place the meat in the bottom of a baking dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and a little pepper, mixing well.

  3. Add the warm broth and hot broth, cooking until bubbling.

  4. Stir in the hot cream or milk.

  5. Pour the sauce over the chicken in the baking dish, reserving some for gravy.

  6. Set the dish in the oven to keep warm while you prepare the rest.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  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

Chicken (in the method)
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as it cooks slowly in water and broth.
Butter
Fat that is melted with flour to form the base of the sauce, adding richness.
Flour
Thickens the broth and cream into a smooth sauce when cooked with the melted butter.
Broth
Liquid that cooks the chicken and forms the body and flavour of the sauce.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and body to the sauce, making it smoother and creamier.

The step that matters

Add the hot liquid gradually and cook until bubbling. Flour thickens sauce only when it is cooked in fat and liquid long enough for starch to swell. Adding liquid too fast or skipping the bubbling stage can leave lumps or a raw, floury taste.

“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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