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Pressed Chicken

A dish of tender chicken pressed into a mold with reduced stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Pressed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fowl

  1. Combine the fowl, onion, celery (or celery seed), and lemon rind in a pan.

  2. Add boiling water to barely cover the fowl.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice.

  4. Simmer slowly until the meat is tender and falling from the bones.

  5. When half cooked, add the coarse sea salt.

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the meat from the bones.

  2. Remove the skin.

  3. Boil the stock in the pan.

  4. Reduce the stock to about 1 cup.

  5. Strain the stock.

  6. Remove fat from the stock.

  7. Season the stock with salt, cayenne, and lemon juice as needed.

  8. Season the meat.

Press and set

  1. Decorate the bottom of a mold with sliced egg or olives.

  2. Pack the meat into the mold.

  3. If the stock is warm, dissolve the gelatine in hot water.

  4. Stir the dissolved gelatine into the strained stock before pouring.

  5. Pour the stock over the meat.

  6. Place a weight on top.

  7. Keep in a cool place until firm.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Fowl
Provides the meat that is pressed and set in its own jellied stock.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic oil and a bright citrus flavour to the poaching liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the stock and balances the rich meat.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and stock through the poaching liquid.
Gelatine
Sets the strained stock so the pressed meat holds its shape when chilled.

The step that matters

Reduce the stock to about 1 cup. The stock must be concentrated enough to set firmly when cooled. Too much water leaves it loose, and if it is over-reduced it can turn salty and tight. Skimming fat before pouring keeps the set clear.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, lemon, pepper, 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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