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Pressed Chicken

A dish of boiled chicken meat pressed into a firm loaf with butter and seasoning.

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

Cook and chop

  1. Boil the chicken in water until tender.

  2. Chop the meat finely.

  3. Season the chopped meat with salt, pepper, and butter.

Press the meat

  1. Place the mixture in a cloth.

  2. Press it with a weight like head cheese.

  3. Separate dark and white meat.

  4. Boil the broth until it thickens.

Layer and chill

  1. Layer dark meat in a buttered dish and season it.

  2. Cover with broth.

  3. Add white meat.

  4. Cover with broth.

  5. Press down with a weight until firm.

  6. Refrigerate until cold.

  7. Slice the pressed chicken.

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 meat that is pressed into a firm, sliceable block.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the seasoned meat and the buttered dish.

The step that matters

Refrigerate until cold before slicing. The gelatin released from the chicken and the thickened broth set as they cool. Slicing before the dish is fully chilled and firm can make the pressed chicken crumble.

“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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