Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Chicken Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the chicken
Soak the cut-up chickens in weak salt water.
Wash the chickens thoroughly.
Place the chickens in a kettle with water and salt. Boil the chickens for 30 minutes.
Make the crust and gravy
In a bowl, rub lard into flour to make a crust.
Mix sour cream and baking soda. Knead the dough.
Roll the dough out to ½ inch thick.
Assemble and bake
Use a 4-quart pudding dish to assemble the pie. Place the crust edge above the rim of the dish.
Pack the chicken closely inside the dish. Sprinkle pepper over each layer of chicken. Add butter lumps.
Stir flour into the gravy. Pour the gravy over the chicken.
Roll out the top crust. Place the top crust over the pie. Pinch the top crust to seal. Prick the top crust to allow steam to escape.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 1½ hours. Serve hot.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 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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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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 meat that is simmered tender and packed into the pie.
- Lard
- Rubbed into flour to create a tender, flaky crust by coating flour particles.
- Flour
- Forms the dough structure of the crust and thickens the gravy.
- Sour cream
- Adds acidity and richness, tenderizing the dough and reacting with the baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas, helping the crust rise and lighten.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, melting into the chicken layers for flavor and moisture.
The step that matters
Prick the top crust. Pricking lets steam escape during baking; without vents, trapped steam can lift or split the crust and make the filling 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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