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Pressed Chicken

A boiled chicken that is pressed to form a jelly, then sliced or served.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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

Cook the chicken

  1. Place the cut-up chicken in a kettle with a tight cover to retain steam.

  2. Add 2 cups of water, salt, and pepper over the chicken.

  3. Cook until the meat easily separates from the bones.

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove skin, bones, and gristle from the chicken.

  2. Chop the meat as for chicken salad.

  3. Season the chopped meat well.

Press and serve

  1. Place the seasoned meat in a dish.

  2. Pour the remaining cooking juice over the meat.

  3. Let the pressed chicken cool.

  4. Slice or serve the jellied 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 + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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.
Water
Forms the cooking liquid that becomes the jelly-like juice around the meat.

The step that matters

Cook until the meat easily separates from the bones. Cooking gently in a covered kettle keeps the meat moist while collagen from the bones and connective tissue breaks down. That gelatin is what sets the cooled juice into a jelly, so the meat must be cooked fully before pressing.

“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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