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Pressed Chicken

Pressed Chicken is a chilled jellied dish made from boiled chicken, sliced hard-boiled eggs, and gelatinized broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens in water with a little coarse sea salt until the meat easily comes off the bones.

  2. Remove the meat from the bones.

  3. Keep the light and dark meat separate.

  4. Chop the meat finely.

  5. Season the chopped meat with salt and pepper.

Press and set

  1. In a pan, layer the light meat.

  2. Layer the dark meat on top.

  3. Add 1 cup of the broth to the pan.

  4. Press the mixture with a small weight.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

  6. Slice the cooled mixture when cold.

Make the jelly and assemble

  1. In a deep dish, layer sliced hard-boiled eggs and chicken alternately until all is used.

  2. Boil down the chicken broth.

  3. Dissolve the gelatin in a little water.

  4. Season the broth.

  5. Pour the seasoned broth over the chicken and eggs.

  6. Allow the broth to mingle with the chicken and eggs.

  7. Place a weight on top while cooling to form a solid jelly.

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).

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

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

  3. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 forms the layers and gives the pressed dish its body and flavour.
Sliced hard-boiled eggs
Add firm texture and visual contrast between the layers of meat.
Chicken broth
Supplies moisture and savoury flavour that becomes the surrounding jelly as it cools.
Gelatine
Sets the seasoned broth into a firm jelly that holds the layers together when sliced.

The step that matters

Place a weight on top while cooling. The weight compacts the layers so they bind together, and the gelatine needs to set evenly as the broth cools, so the slices hold their shape.

“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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