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 ↓
Pressed Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the chicken
Boil the chickens until they are falling apart.
Remove the meat from the bones and discard the skin, then chop the meat finely.
Return the chopped meat to the kettle with a little of the boiling liquid.
Season and press
Season the mixture with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Transfer the mixture to a dish and press it down with a plate and a weight.
Refrigerate until cold, then slice to serve.
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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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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 chopped and pressed into a firm, sliceable loaf.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the chopped meat, improving its mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Pressing and chilling the mixture. Pressing while the meat is still warm and then chilling it firmly lets the chopped meat and its cooking liquid set together, so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
“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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