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Virginia Fried Chicken
Dice and fry one-half pound of salt pork until it is well rendered. Prepare a young chicken; cut into pieces for frying; soak well in salt and water; wipe dry; season with pepper; dredge well with flour, and fry in hot lard until a rich golden color. Take up and keep warm. Pour into the gravy one cup of milk-it is better to use half cream if convenient; thicken with little flour, adding a spoonful of butter and chopped parsley; pour over the chicken as soon as it comes to a boil; or, if preferred, serve without the cream gravy, with bunches of parsley fried.
A straightforward skillet fry with a pan gravy, written for a cook who already knew what a chicken looked like in pieces. A few of the assumptions need spelling out.
- The hinge: fat temperatureThe recipe only says "hot lard." In practice something around 325-350F works, with enough fat to come partway up the pieces. Too cool and the flour coating soaks and slides off; too hot and the crust colors long before the thigh reaches a safe 165F.
- Salt pork and lardThe rendered salt pork is there for flavor and fat; a half pound yields perhaps a third of a cup of drippings, so you still add lard or a neutral high-smoke-point fat to reach frying depth. The crisp pork dice are worth keeping to scatter over the finished dish.
- "A young chicken"A spring chicken of the period was considerably smaller than a modern supermarket bird, typically somewhere around 2 to 2 1/2 lb dressed. Use a 3 to 3 1/2 lb chicken cut into eight or ten pieces, and split the breasts so they cook in the same time as the legs.
- The salt-water soakThe recipe gives neither strength nor duration. Treated as a brine, an hour in cold water with about 1/4 cup salt per quart is plenty; much longer and the meat turns spongy and oversalted. Dry the pieces thoroughly or the flour will not adhere.
- Season the flour tooThe recipe seasons the chicken with pepper and dredges in plain flour. Salt and pepper the flour as well, given that the brine has already done part of the work.
- The gravyPour off all but about three tablespoons of fat, stir in an equal amount of flour, cook it a minute, then add the cup of milk or half-and-half. "As soon as it comes to a boil" means one boil to thicken it, not a long simmer.
- Fried parsleyThe alternative garnish is small sprigs dropped into the hot fat for 10-15 seconds until crisp and still green. Dry them well first, as wet parsley spits violently in fat.
- YieldOne chicken with gravy serves four.
Fried chicken cooked in pork fat and finished with a milk gravy is the pattern that nineteenth-century American cookbooks often label "Virginia" or "Maryland," and the terms were used loosely and interchangeably. The technique belongs to Southern kitchens where enslaved and later hired Black cooks did the work that produced the dish, and where salt pork and lard were the standard frying fats long before commercial shortening. Its appearance in a general-purpose household book like this one shows how thoroughly a regional dish had become national: no explanation of the name is offered, because none was thought necessary. The cream gravy, offered here as optional — "it is better to use half cream if convenient" — may suggest a recipe aimed at households that might not have cream on hand daily, though that is only an inference.