Skip to main content
Main

Pressed Chicken

A dish of boiled chicken pressed over a sliced hard‑boiled egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

  1. Boil the chickens in minimal water until tender.

  2. Remove the meat from the bones and return it to the kettle.

Season and heat

  1. Add plenty of butter, pepper, and salt, then heat thoroughly.

Press and cool

  1. Slice the hard-boiled egg and place it in the bottom of a dish.

  2. Pour the chicken mixture over the egg.

  3. Place a weight on top.

  4. Let it cool.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main body of the dish, and their meat firms up as it cools and holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a moist, smooth texture in the chicken mixture.
Hard boiled egg
Adds a firm, mild layer that contrasts with the soft chicken when the dish is sliced.

The step that matters

Boil the chickens in minimal water until tender.. Using little water keeps the cooking liquid concentrated, so the gelatin released from the bones and skin helps the mixture set firmly as it cools. Too much water makes a loose, weak set.

“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.

More pressed chicken recipes

with Egg 3 See all 141 →

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes