Name: Pressed Chicken
Ingredients: 1 old chicken; 1 teaspoon salt; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 pound veal (optional, for compact loaf)

Why it works: Chicken and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,243 recipes. Both carry 3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

Pressed Chicken

Ingredients

1 old chicken
1 teaspoon salt
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pound veal (optional, for compact loaf)

Directions

Cook the chicken

Place the chicken in a pot over moderate heat and simmer gently until the meat falls from the bones.
Add 1 teaspoon of salt when the chicken is about halfway done.
Once cooked, remove the meat from the bones and cut it into small pieces.

Make the liquid

Return the skin and bones to the pot and boil until the liquid is reduced to 1½ pints.
Strain the liquid and season it to taste with salt and pepper.

Press and chill

Mix the seasoned liquid with the chicken pieces.
Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate overnight.
Place a light weight on top to press it together.

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.

Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,243 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).
Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,958 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Pepper + vealtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken: Provides the meat and flavorful body that the set loaf is built from.
Veal: Adds gelatin-rich body that helps the loaf hold a compact shape when pressed.

The step that matters

Reducing the cooking liquid. Boiling the skin and bones down to 1½ pints concentrates the gelatin and flavor from the chicken. Too little reduction leaves the loaf weak and bland, while the liquid's gelatin is what helps it set firm when chilled.

“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.