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Pressed Chicken

A chilled chicken jelly made by layering boiled chicken, egg, and gelatin in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Pressed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken in a small amount of water with a little coarse sea salt until tender.

  2. Remove all the meat from the bones, keeping light and dark meat separate.

  3. Chop the meat finely and season with a pinch of grated nutmeg.

Make the broth

  1. Reduce the broth to about 1 cup and soak the gelatin in a little cold water.

Layer and set

  1. Layer thin slices of hard boiled egg in the bottom of a mold or dish and pour a little broth over them.

  2. Chill until the jelly is cold, then layer the chopped chicken in light and dark layers.

  3. Pour the remaining broth over the chicken, place a small weight on top, and chill until set.

Serve

  1. To serve, turn out onto a dish and cut into slices.

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. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Chicken + nutmegtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the dish and supplies the meat that is set in the jelly.
Gelatine
Sets the broth into a firm jelly that holds the layers together when sliced.
Chicken broth
Provides the liquid that becomes the savoury jelly once reduced and chilled.
Hard boiled egg
Adds a firm, mild contrast in texture and colour between the layers.

The step that matters

Chill until the jelly is cold before layering the chicken. Gelatine sets only as the liquid cools, so pouring chicken onto warm or unset broth lets the layers mix and prevents a clean, sliceable set.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, 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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