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Pressed Chicken

A dish of boiled chicken and veal pressed into a mold, seasoned with onion, sage, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pressed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the meat

  1. In a kettle, combine the chicken and veal with cold water to cover.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  3. Add the chopped onion and sage, then boil slowly until the meat separates easily from the bone.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  5. About ¼ hour before it's done, drain the mixture and chop the meat while hot.

Press and set

  1. If desired, layer sliced hard boiled eggs at the bottom of the mold before adding the chicken.

  2. Pack the meat into a mold and cover with enough broth so that it rises to the top when pressed with a plate.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

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 meat, which sets into a firm, sliceable mass as it cools.
Veal
Adds gelatin-rich connective tissue that helps the broth set firmly when chilled.
Onion
Contributes a mild savory aroma that flavours the broth as the meat cooks.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam after boiling. Foam carries impurities and cloudy proteins from the meat. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, which matters because the broth becomes the jelly that holds the pressed meat together.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, veal, sage, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, sage, pepper, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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