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Baked Chicken
Split your chicken in the back, season well with salt, pepper and butter. Put water enough in the pan to cook the chicken and have sufficient gravy. Baste often, turning the chicken so as to let it brown on all sides. When done, take up the chicken, thicken with flour and serve in a gravy dish.
A spatchcocked roast chicken with pan gravy, written for a cook who already knew what a chicken looked like when it was done. The gaps are temperature, time and quantity.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A 3-4 lb bird split flat roasts well at 425F for about 45 minutes, or at 375F for closer to an hour, though the water in the pan here will keep the underside closer to a braise than a roast.
- "Split in the back"The bird is cut open along the backbone and opened out, what is now called spatchcocking; the recipe does not specify whether the backbone is removed or the bird pressed flat. Opening the bird out puts breast and thigh on roughly the same cooking schedule.
- Turning versus flat roastingThe instruction to brown on all sides belongs to a shallow pan and frequent attention. A flattened bird left skin side up the whole time browns more evenly and needs no turning, though it will not colour on the underside.
- How much water"Water enough" is not quantified, and the phrase suggests enough to both cook the bird and leave gravy behind. For roasting rather than steaming, a shallow film of roughly a cup is enough; more than that softens the skin, and the bird's own juices will make up the difference.
- DonenessCook to 165F at the thickest part of the thigh, away from the bone. The recipe leaves "when done" entirely to the cook's judgement; a thermometer is more reliable than eye or juices on a bird of uncertain size.
- Thickening the gravyFlour stirred straight into hot pan liquid lumps. Whisk 2 tablespoons flour into a little cold water or milk first, then stir that into the skimmed pan juices and simmer two or three minutes to cook out the raw taste.
- BastingBasting a dry-skinned bird with the watery pan liquid softens the skin. If crisp skin matters, leave it alone and spoon the pan juices over at the table instead.
- YieldThe recipe gives no size or yield. A bird of the 3-4 lb size assumed above would serve about four, with roughly a cup of gravy.
Baked and roast fowl entries in household books are often this brief because the technique was assumed rather than taught; what varied from kitchen to kitchen was the oven, not the method. Splitting a bird down the back and cooking it flat is much older than the word "spatchcock" is common in print, and was one common treatment for a young chicken over coals or on a gridiron before it moved indoors to the oven pan. The name is often said to derive from Irish and English usage for a bird dressed and cooked in haste, though the derivation is uncertain. The gravy finish here, water in the pan and flour stirred in at the end, is the plain domestic counterpart to a restaurant sauce built from stock.