Why it works: Butter and chicken 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
Cut up the chicken and place it in a kettle with a tight cover.
Add 2 cups of water, salt, pepper, and the butter.
Cook until the meat easily comes from the bones.
Press and serve
Chop the meat finely and pack it into a mold.
Pour any remaining juice over the chicken in the mold.
Let it cool completely, then slice or turn out of the mold 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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Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Pepper + chickentop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Egg + chickentop 30% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Chicken
- Provides the meat that is pressed into a firm, sliceable loaf.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the cooking liquid and juices.
The step that matters
Cook until the meat easily comes from the bones. Cooking low and covered until the meat releases from the bone makes it tender and moist. Undercooked meat stays tough and will not hold together well when pressed and chilled.
“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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