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Pressed Chicken

A dish of boiled chicken meat pressed into a loaf and sliced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

Prepare

  1. Boil the chicken until tender.

  2. Remove the meat from the bones.

Season and shape

  1. Season the meat with salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Add enough chicken broth to moisten the mixture well.

  3. Shape the mixture by layering light and dark meat alternately.

  4. Once cold, turn out and slice.

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.

  1. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Chicken
Provides the main body of the dish, with meat that is set into a firm shape when pressed.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the seasoned meat a softer, smoother mouthfeel.
Chicken broth
Adds moisture so the meat holds together and stays tender once pressed and chilled.

The step that matters

Add enough chicken broth to moisten the mixture well.. Pressed meat needs enough liquid to stay moist and bind as it cools. Too little broth leaves it dry and crumbly when sliced, while the gelatin from the broth helps it set firmly.

“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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