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Chicken Pie

A savory pie filled with boiled chicken pieces and a buttery crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 chicken

  1. Clean the chickens and cut them into small pieces, then wash the pieces well.

  2. Cook the chicken pieces in water for 20 minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. Mix flour with cold water to make a thin paste and stir it into the gravy.

  2. Add a lump of butter, then season with pepper and salt.

  3. Let it cool.

Make the crust

  1. Mix equal parts lard and flour with a little salt to make a paste.

  2. Roll the lard-flour paste thin.

  3. Line a deep pie dish with the rolled-out paste.

  4. Roll out the top crust to half the size needed.

  5. Spread butter on the top crust to a depth of ¼ inch.

  6. Roll the top crust up and out again.

  7. Repeat rolling 2-3 times.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the cooked chicken in the pie dish.

  2. Cover with the top crust and pinch the edges together.

  3. Cut a slit in the top crust.

  4. Bake until slightly browned.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Chickens
Provide the main filling, which is cooked in water until tender.
Lard
Gives the crust a short, flaky texture as it stays solid during rolling.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and forms the structure of the pastry.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the gravy and layers of the top crust.

The step that matters

Rolling the top crust with butter. Spreading butter between rolled layers creates flaky separation when baked. If the butter is too warm or the dough too soft, it blends in and the crust turns dense instead of layered.

“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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