Name: Chicken Pie
Ingredients: 2 chickens; ¼ pound salt pork, sliced thin; 4 potatoes; salt; pepper; 1 pint milk

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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

Cut the chickens into pieces.
Boil the chicken pieces with the salt pork and potatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper, for two hours.

Finish

Drain off the liquid and add the milk to the remaining mixture.

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.

Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,417 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,756 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens: Provide the main protein and body of the pie filling.
Salt pork: Adds fat and savory flavor to the broth as it cooks.
Potatoes: Add starch that thickens the filling and gives it body.
Milk: Adds moisture and creaminess to the mixture after the liquid is drained.