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Chicken Pot Pie

A dumpling-like dish made by dropping stiff dough into boiling chicken gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Chicken Pot Pie

Why it works: Milk and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,389 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Add the egg and enough sweet milk to form a very stiff dough.

Cook in the gravy

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough into plenty of boiling chicken gravy.

  2. Cook for 10 minutes, keeping the pot lid off after they begin to boil.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + chickentop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Forms the starchy structure that holds the dumplings together.
Baking powder
Releases gas when it reacts with moisture and heat, so the dumplings rise and lighten.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure as it sets.
Sweet milk
Moistens the flour into a dough and adds tenderness and richness.

The step that matters

Keeping the gravy boiling while the dumplings cook. The dough sets as its starch swells and firms in hot liquid. If the gravy drops below a boil, the dumplings can cook unevenly and turn heavy or gummy.

“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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