Pressed Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the chicken
Cut up the chickens and nearly cover them with water.
Add the salt and cover closely.
Boil until the flesh falls off the bones.
Remove skin and gristle.
Pull the meat into small pieces with a fork.
Press and set
Place the meat into a mold.
If there is too much liquid, boil it down until just enough to cover the meat.
Taste the liquid to ensure it is salty enough before pouring it over the meat.
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
- Spring chickens
- Provide the meat that is cooked until tender and pressed into a firm mold.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the chicken and its cooking liquid, which becomes the set jelly around the meat.
The step that matters
Adjusting the cooking liquid. The liquid is poured over the meat and sets around it, so it must be reduced to just enough to cover and tasted for salt first. Too much liquid gives a weak, watery set, and under-salted liquid leaves the dish bland.
“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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