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Chicken Pie

A savory pie made with stewed chicken, milk, cream, and a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the hens into pieces.

  2. Stew the pieces until cooked through.

  3. Pour in the milk and cream.

  4. Thicken with flour and milk to your desired consistency.

  5. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  6. Pour the mixture into a deep pan.

  7. Reserve some gravy in the kettle to serve with the pie.

Make the pastry

  1. Mix the pastry ingredients: 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ½ cup lard or butter, and 1 cup sweet cream. Mix well.

  2. Roll out the dough.

  3. Line a pan with the dough.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the chicken and gravy with the pastry.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and butter 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

Hens
Provide the meat that is stewed until tender and forms the body of the pie.
Milk
Adds liquid to the filling, creating a creamy gravy when thickened with flour.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the filling, giving a smoother, silkier gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it holds together rather than running out of the pie.
Lard or butter
Adds fat to the pastry, making it tender and flaky as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the pastry rise and stay light.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour and milk to your desired consistency. Flour must be mixed smoothly into the liquid and cooked, or it forms lumps and leaves a raw starchy taste. Starch thickens the gravy only as it heats, so the filling should be thick enough before it goes under the pastry, otherwise it will run and make the crust soggy.

“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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