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Pressed Chicken

A dish of boiled chicken meat pressed into a loaf, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,958 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Pressed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens in a small quantity of water with a little coarse sea salt until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Remove all meat from the bones, discarding the skin, and keep light and dark meat separate.

  3. Chop the meat and season with pepper and salt to taste.

Press and set

  1. In a mold or pan, layer the light and dark meat until all is used.

  2. Add about 1 teacupful of the boiling liquid and place a heavy weight on top.

  3. Once cold, cut into slices.

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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 pressed, sliced and served as the main component.
Boiling liquid
Adds moisture and, as it cools, helps the meat bind into a set, sliceable block.

The step that matters

Pressing under a heavy weight until cold. Pressing while the meat cools squeezes out excess liquid and lets the gelatin from the bones and skin set, so the layers hold together 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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