Name: Chicken Pie
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken; 1 onion; 2 carrots; 2 celery stalks; 1 teaspoon salt; 1/2 teaspoon black pepper; 1/2 teaspoon thyme; 1/2 cup chicken broth; 1 pie crust

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Boil the chicken with onion, carrots, celery, salt, pepper, and thyme until cooked.
Remove the chicken, shred the meat, and strain the broth.

Assemble and bake

Mix the chicken with broth and place in a pie crust.
Cover with another pie crust, seal edges, and cut slits on top.
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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,563 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,193 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken: Provides the main protein and, once simmered, the meat and broth for the filling.
Chicken broth: Adds moisture to the filling so it stays juicy rather than dry.
Pie crust: Forms the encasing base and top that hold the filling while it bakes.
Onion: Adds aromatic flavor to the broth that the filling absorbs.

Swap the onion

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

Parsnipfits better
Capsicumfits better
Tomatofits better
Onionthe original

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