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Chicken Pie

A pie made with stewed chicken, oysters, and a buttery crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the chicken until tender, seasoning with butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Line the sides of a pie dish with pastry crust.

  3. Pour the stewed chicken into the pie dish.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. Heat the oyster liquor.

  2. Thicken the oyster liquor with flour and water.

  3. Season the oyster mixture with salt, pepper, and butter.

  4. When the oyster mixture comes to a boil, pour it over the oysters.

Bake

  1. Cover loosely with a crust, cutting a hole in the center the size of a small teacup.

  2. About 20 minutes before the pie is done, lift the top crust and add the oysters.

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. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

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

  4. Chicken + oystertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together972 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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
Provides the main body of the filling and becomes tender from slow stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the stewed chicken and the oyster mixture.
Oysters
Supply the distinctive briny flavor of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the oyster liquor into a smooth sauce.
Pastry crust
Forms the shell and top that enclose the filling while the pie bakes.

The step that matters

Thicken the oyster liquor before adding the oysters. Flour needs to come to a boil in liquid to swell and thicken fully; under-cooked flour leaves a thin or pasty sauce. Adding the oysters only after the mixture boils keeps them from overcooking as the pie finishes.

“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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