Name: Chicken Pot Pie
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken, cut into pieces; 2-3 slices of fat salt pork; 3 pints water; 2 ounces butter; 1 teaspoon pepper; 1 quart oysters; flour (for thickening); pie crust (made like biscuit dough)

Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Pot Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Boil the chicken pieces in water for about 20 minutes until partially cooked, then remove from pot.
Fry the salt pork slices in a pan and place them at the bottom of a baking dish.

Assemble

Layer the chicken pieces on top of the pork.
Add 3 pints of water, 2 ounces of butter, and 1 teaspoon of pepper.
Cover with a pie crust made like biscuit dough.

Bake

Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,417 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together889 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + biscuittop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together841 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

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: Partial boiling cooks the meat before baking, so it finishes tender in the oven.
Salt pork: Frying renders fat that flavours the base and keeps the bottom layer from drying out.
Butter: Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the filling.
Pie crust: Biscuit-style dough forms a sturdy top that bakes golden and flaky over the filling.

“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.