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Pressed Chicken
Cook a pair of chickens very tender, so that the meat will leave the bones. Chop fine and season to taste with salt and pepper; pack in a jelly mould. Have the liquor boiled down and pour a cupful over the meat. Put a weight on the top, having a plate that fits inside the mould, so that your meat is nicely covered before your weight is put on. If you want to make chicken salad, with white meat, use the dark for pressed chicken. In this case you will only need a half cup of liquor. An earthen mould is the best. -Mrs. Parkhurst, N. F.
A jellied loaf that sets on the gelatin in the cooking liquor alone, so the reduction is the whole recipe. Everything else is chopping and patience.
- The hinge: reduce the liquor hardThe loaf holds together only because the stock is concentrated enough to set. Simmer the birds with the backs, necks and feet if you have them, then boil the strained liquor down until a spoonful chilled on a saucer is firmly tacky and jellies. If it stays syrupy, keep reducing, or soften a teaspoon of powdered gelatin into the cup before pouring.
- "A pair of chickens"Two whole birds. Contributor recipes of this kind generally assumed an older, tougher fowl, which is why the instruction is to cook until the meat leaves the bones. Two modern birds of roughly 3 to 4 lb will do; simmer 1 1/2 to 2 hours rather than the much longer stewing an old hen needs.
- Cook it covered in liquid, not roastedThe instruction assumes poaching or stewing, since the recipe depends on the resulting liquor. Barely cover with water, add an onion, a carrot and a few peppercorns, and keep it at a bare simmer so the stock stays clear.
- Chop, do not shredPull the meat while warm, discard skin, cartilage and every scrap of bone, then chop it fine as the recipe directs. Long shreds leave air pockets and the slices break apart. Include some skin only if you want a richer, softer set.
- The mould and the weightAn earthen or glass loaf mould is still the right choice, non-reactive and easy to unmould in a brief dip of hot water. Line it with plastic wrap if you like. The plate need only fit inside; a 1 to 2 lb weight, a can or a bag of sugar, is plenty.
- Chill, and chill properlyThe original says nothing about chilling. Cool the packed mould quickly, then refrigerate weighted at least 8 hours, preferably overnight. Keep it refrigerated and eat within three days; a jellied meat loaf is not a keeper.
- Season above your instinctCold jellied meat tastes flatter than the same mixture warm. Salt and pepper the chopped chicken until it seems slightly too assertive on a warm spoonful; a little nutmeg, mace or lemon is a reasonable addition.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no mould size; the meat from two birds will fill a large loaf mould, and may need more than one. Turn out, cut with a thin knife wiped between slices, and serve cold with mustard, pickles or a green salad.
- The dark-meat noteMrs. Parkhurst's suggestion is a household economy: white meat to chicken salad, dark to the press. Using only the dark meat leaves you with roughly half as much to pack, which is why half a cup of liquor is enough.
Pressed chicken, sometimes called chicken loaf or jellied chicken, belongs to a large family of nineteenth-century pressed and potted meats that solved a plain problem: a boiled fowl fed a household better cold, sliced and firm, than reheated. The technique is the same one behind head cheese and brawn, using the natural gelatin in skin, bone and connective tissue instead of added setting agents, and it was standard practice long before packaged gelatin became cheap and reliable. Recipes like this cluster in American community and household cookbooks, usually carrying a short tag of attribution as here, which is why the wording reads like one cook talking to another rather than a tested formula. The advice to divide a pair of birds between salad and loaf is characteristic of the period's frugality: nothing is wasted, and the cooking liquor, the most valuable thing in the pot, becomes the structure of the dish.