Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Chicken Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the gravy
Wash the chicken pieces and place them in a stew pan with salt, pepper, and enough water to nearly cover them.
Rub the butter into the flour.
Add the butter-flour mixture to the gravy once the chicken is cooked; let it boil for a few minutes.
Assemble the pie
Line the sides of a pie dish with the pie crust.
Add the chicken and half of the gravy to the crust-lined dish.
Cover the pie with the remaining crust, leaving an opening in the center.
Decorate the top with cut-out shapes.
Bake and serve
Once baked, pour the remaining gravy into the pie through the opening.
Serve in the baking dish.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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
- Provides the main filling and the meat that flavors the gravy as it cooks.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the gravy, carrying flavor and a smooth mouthfeel.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy when it is mixed with butter and boiled.
The step that matters
Boiling the butter-flour mixture into the gravy. Flour must be cooked by boiling for a few minutes so it thickens fully and loses its raw starchy taste. Adding it to liquid without boiling leaves the gravy thin or floury.
“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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