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Chicken Pot-pie

A boiled pot pie with chicken, ham, potatoes, and a biscuit dough crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,756 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-decenal, which smells green, must. The science ↓

Chicken Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the chicken pieces and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Make a light biscuit dough by mixing flour and butter until crumbly.

  3. Roll out the dough and cut into long squares.

Assemble and cook

  1. Grease a pot and line it with the dough, reaching nearly to the top.

  2. Layer the bottom with slices of cold ham, then add the chicken pieces, squares of dough, and quartered potatoes.

  3. Pour in 1 quart of water and cover with a dough lid, making a slit in the center.

  4. Boil steadily for 2 hours, ensuring it continues to boil.

  5. Half an hour before serving, add bits of butter rolled in flour through the slit to thicken the gravy.

Serve

  1. Serve the pot-pie on a large dish and pour the gravy over it.

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. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Chicken
Provides the savory meat and, as it simmers, flavors the broth that becomes the gravy.
All-purpose flour
Forms the biscuit-style dough that gives the pot pie its structure and tender body.
Butter
Adds richness to the dough and, rolled in flour, helps thicken the gravy.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, soaking up flavor and adding substance to the dish.
Ham
Adds salty, savory flavor that seasons the layers and the gravy.

The step that matters

Keep the pot boiling steadily. A steady boil cooks the dough through and keeps the chicken and potatoes cooking evenly; a weak simmer can leave the dough doughy and the gravy thin.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, flour, butter, ham):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, flour, butter, ham. 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.

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