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Chicken Pie

A savory pie filled with shredded chicken and a creamy sauce, encased in a double crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a pot, boil the chicken with onion, carrots, celery, salt, and pepper until cooked.

  2. Remove the chicken, shred the meat, and set aside.

  3. In the same pot, melt butter, stir in flour, and gradually add chicken broth to make a sauce.

  4. Combine shredded chicken with the sauce and pour into a pie crust.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with another pie crust, seal edges, and cut slits on top.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and meat that is shredded into the filling.
Flour
Thickens the butter and broth into a sauce that holds the filling together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and forms the base of the thickened sauce with the flour.
Chicken broth
Supplies liquid that becomes the moist sauce binding the chicken filling.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it cooks into the broth.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the broth to the butter and flour. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour from clumping, so the sauce becomes smooth and evenly thickened rather than lumpy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, celery, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, celery, pepper, butter, flour. 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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