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Pressed Chicken

A pressed chicken dish served on a lettuce leaf, made by cooking chicken, boiling broth, mincing meat, and pressing it around boiled eggs in a glass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,148 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Pressed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook and prepare the chicken

  1. Cook the chicken until it falls from the bones.

  2. Drain and cool the chicken.

  3. Remove all fat from the broth.

  4. Boil the broth down to 1 cup.

  5. Pick the meat from the bones.

  6. Mince the meat finely.

  7. Add the minced meat to the broth.

  8. Reheat the mixture.

  9. Add the celery salt.

Fill the glasses

  1. Slice off the tip ends of the hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Stand the sliced eggs in the center of the dried beef glasses.

  3. Press the chicken around the eggs.

  4. Add another egg and repeat until the glass is full.

  5. Place individual butter plates on top.

  6. Weigh the butter plates down until cold.

Unmold and serve

  1. Loosen the meat from the bottom and sides of the glass.

  2. Lay the loosened meat on a meat board to cut.

  3. Allow enough meat to extend beyond the top for each slice.

  4. Serve on a lettuce leaf.

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 + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Celery + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and gelatin-rich broth that set the pressed mixture firm.
Hard-boiled eggs
Give a firm, sliceable centre and visual contrast in each slice.
Celery salt
Seasons the broth and meat with savory, salty flavour.

The step that matters

Weigh the butter plates down until cold. The broth sets as it cools; pressing until fully chilled packs the meat firmly so slices hold their shape rather than crumbling.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, beef, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, beef, butter. 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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