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Pressed Chicken

Boiled chicken that is pressed and served with its cooking juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Pressed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Place the cut-up fowls 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 and set

  1. Remove the meat from skin, bone, and gristle, and chop it as for chicken salad.

  2. Season well and place in a dish.

  3. Pour the remaining cooking juice over the meat.

  4. Let it cool; it will jelly and can be sliced or served in shape.

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

What each ingredient does

Fowls
Provide the meat that is cooked, separated from bone, and pressed into a set loaf.
Water
Forms the cooking liquid that becomes the juices that set into a jelly as it cools.

The step that matters

Cool the cooking juice with the meat. The natural gelatin from the bones and skin dissolves into the cooking liquid and sets as it cools. Enough liquid must surround the meat so it can jelly and hold its shape when sliced.

“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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