Why it works: Chicken and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,375 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Chicken Pressed
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the chicken
Place the cut chicken in a kettle with a tight cover to retain steam.
Add 2 cups of water and cook until the meat easily separates from the bones.
Remove the bones, skin, gristle, and fat; chop the meat separately into white and dark pieces.
Press and serve
Season the meat well and layer it in a mold, pouring the cooking juice over it.
Cover the mold and place a heavy weight on top.
Alternatively, mix all the meat together with the pounded cracker and broth before molding.
Slice the pressed chicken and serve garnished with celery leaves or lemon slices.
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 + celerytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,375 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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, set into a firm sliceable mass when pressed.
- Cracker
- Pounded crumbs can bind the chopped meat together when it is molded as an alternative.
The step that matters
Covering the mold and placing a heavy weight on top. Pressing compacts the chopped meat and cooking juices so they set together into a firm loaf that slices cleanly. Without even pressure, the mixture may crumble or stay loose.
“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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