Why it works: Onion and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,779 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Pressed Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the chicken and sweetbreads
Boil the chicken until the meat falls from the bone.
Boil the stock until reduced to 1 pint.
Let the stock cool until it jellies.
Pick the chicken into small pieces.
Boil the sweetbreads for 20 minutes with the onion.
Cool the sweetbreads in cold water.
Remove the fiber and skin from the sweetbreads.
Cut the sweetbreads into small pieces using a silver knife.
Assemble and press
Mix the chicken and sweetbreads together.
Season the mixture with salt and pepper.
Pour the stock over the mixture.
Add the sliced hard-boiled eggs and sliced olives.
Place the mixture in a mold the day before serving.
Serve
Turn out the mold and slice the pressed chicken.
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.
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Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,779 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,814 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
-
Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,888 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,263 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Provides the main meat that forms the body of the pressed dish.
- Stock (in the method)
- Reduced and cooled until it jellies, binding the meat into a firm set mass.
- Sweetbreads
- Add tender, delicate meat pieces that soften during boiling and blend into the mould.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Add firm, pale slices that give structure and contrast to the sliced pressed chicken.
- Stuffed olives
- Add salty, briny bites and visual contrast in the sliced pressed chicken.
The step that matters
Let the stock cool until it jellies. The stock must set to a firm gel before the mixture is pressed; gelatin from the bones sets as it cools, so the stock should be fully chilled and jellied before assembling, or the slices will not hold together.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, egg, olive):
- Capsicumfits better
- Tomatofits better
- Spinachfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, egg, olive. 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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