Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Chicken Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Prepare a fricassee of chicken, either brown or white.
Line a deep baking dish with pie crust or biscuit crust.
Assemble and bake
Place the cooked chicken in the dish and pour in the gravy.
Cover with pastry, cutting a round hole in the center.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 45 minutes.
Decorate the top with pastry leaves and cover with buttered paper for the first 20 minutes to prevent burning.
Serve hot or cold.
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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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Biscuit + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,009 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Chicken + biscuittop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together332 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cooked chicken
- Forms the savory filling that makes up the body of the pie.
- Gravy
- Adds moisture so the filling stays juicy rather than drying out in the oven.
- Pie crust or biscuit crust
- Forms the structure that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the buttered paper and top crust brown gently.
The step that matters
Cover with buttered paper for the first 20 minutes. Covering the top early shields the pastry from direct heat, so it cooks through without scorching before the filling is hot.
“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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