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Pressed Chicken

A chilled chicken dish with olives, peppers, celery, eggs, and gelatine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Pressed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Combine the picked chicken, olives, green peppers, celery, red pepper, and salt in a bowl and mix the ingredients well.

  2. Arrange the sliced hard boiled eggs around the bottom and sides of a deep dish.

  3. Place the chicken mixture in the center of the dish.

Set the broth

  1. Boil down the chicken broth until it reduces to 1 pint.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine in the reduced broth.

  3. Let the gelatine mixture cool slightly.

  4. Pour the gelatine mixture over the chicken in the dish.

  5. Refrigerate until firm.

Serve

  1. Turn the dish out onto a serving platter.

  2. Serve with lettuce and mayonnaise.

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. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

  5. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the broth into a firm, sliceable jelly that holds the mold together.
Chicken broth
Carries the flavor and, once gelatine is dissolved, forms the set jelly around the chicken.
Hard boiled eggs
Provide firm, creamy slices that add substance and visual layering to the set dish.
Boiled chicken
Supplies the main protein and meaty texture of the pressed dish.
Celery
Adds crisp, fresh crunch that contrasts with the soft chicken and jelly.

The step that matters

Reducing the broth to 1 pint before adding gelatine. Boiling off excess water concentrates the broth's flavor and sets the amount of liquid so the gelatine can set it firm. Too much liquid yields a loose jelly that will not hold its shape when turned out.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, olive, pepper, egg, lettuce. 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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