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Chicken Salad (Boil one nice chicken When)
Boil one nice chicken. When thoroughly done chop very fine. Boil twelve eggs. Rub the yolks to a smooth paste. Add to this two tablespoonfuls of tomato catsup, one spoonful of all kinds of sauces, one teaspoonful of red pepper and one of black, one large onion chopped fine, one teacup of mashed Irish potato made soft with vinegar. Skim off water in which the chicken was boiled, add one cup of celery chopped fine. Put on ice in a flat pan so as to cut into squares. Serve with water cresses. -Mrs. John Durst.
One chicken.
A pressed chicken salad rather than a mayonnaise-bound one: the binder is hard yolk, mashed potato and gelatin-rich broth, chilled firm and cut in squares. The instructions assume knowledge the modern cook has to supply.
- The hinge is the brothThe broth matters -- the recipe adds back the water the chicken was boiled in, and what natural gelatin it carries will help the mixture set, though the mashed potato and sieved yolk also do binding work. A well-reduced, sticky stock will set more firmly than a thin one; a supermarket broiler yields less gelatin than an older backyard fowl, so reduce the liquid hard, or add feet or wings, if you want it to cut cleanly.
- Quantity of broth is not statedThe recipe says only to skim the water the chicken was boiled in. Work toward a mixture that is moist and packable but not soupy, adding the reduced stock a few tablespoons at a time; too much and it will never cut cleanly.
- "One spoonful of all kinds of sauces"Most likely the bottled table sauces a period pantry held: Worcestershire, mushroom ketchup, a pepper sauce, perhaps Harvey's or a walnut ketchup. A teaspoon each of Worcestershire and hot sauce covers the intent without turning the salad brown.
- Red and black pepperRed pepper is cayenne. A full teaspoon of cayenne plus a teaspoon of black is aggressive by current taste for a single chicken; start with a quarter teaspoon of cayenne and build.
- Irish potatoAn ordinary white potato, so named in the South to distinguish it from the sweet potato. Boil, mash smooth, and loosen with vinegar as directed " it acts as a starch binder and the acid keeps the mixture bright.
- Twelve eggs, yolks onlyHard-boil, press the yolks through a sieve for a lump-free paste, and keep the whites " chopped fine, they fold in well and are otherwise wasted.
- Cooking the birdAn older fowl of the kind this recipe likely assumed wanted a long, bare simmer, often two hours or more. A modern 4 lb chicken is done in roughly 50 to 70 minutes, at 165F in the thigh; boiling it longer only shreds the breast and clouds the stock.
- Chilling and keeping"on ice" meant the icebox; use the refrigerator. Press into a shallow pan, cover, and give it at least four hours to set firm before cutting. Being a cooked salad handled cold, it should be kept refrigerated and eaten within two days.
- YieldOne chicken and a dozen eggs make roughly eight to ten generous squares " a luncheon or supper dish, served on watercress.
Pressed and molded meat salads were a fixture of American entertaining, when a dish that could be made the day before, chilled, and cut into neat portions was worth more to a hostess than one requiring last-minute dressing. The technique is a domestic cousin of the aspic and the potted meat: gelatin drawn from the bird's own bones does the setting, with mashed potato and sieved yolk giving body. The seasoning tells you as much about the period as the method " tomato catsup and "all kinds of sauces" from bottles reflect how thoroughly commercial condiments had entered the home kitchen. The attribution to Mrs. John Durst is typical of the subscription and community cookbooks of the era, which gathered signed contributions from local women; "Irish potato" for the common white potato marks the compiler's Southern usage, and watercress serves here as the garnish.