Cut a fat chicken into pieces at the joints and let stew, well seasoned with salt and pepper. Then add some small whole onions, some cauliflower, mushrooms and 1 cup of French peas. Let all cook until tender; then serve hot on a large platter.
A one-pot chicken stew written in the shorthand of 1900, when a cook was assumed to know how much water to put in the pot and how long a hen took to soften. The gaps are all in the timing and the liquid.
- The missing liquidNo amount is given; the original presumably left it to the cook, who would have added enough water or broth to cover the pieces. About 3 cups of stock suits a cut-up bird, kept at a bare simmer rather than a boil so the meat does not tighten.
- A fat chickenLikely a plump, mature bird, which would have needed considerably longer than a modern one -- upwards of an hour and a half of stewing. A modern 4-5 lb chicken is usually tender in something like 40-45 minutes, and the breast pieces are best pulled out earlier than the thighs.
- Stagger the vegetablesAdding onions, cauliflower, mushrooms and peas together, as written, gives mush and grey cauliflower. Small whole onions go in with about 25 minutes left, cauliflower florets with 12, mushrooms with 8.
- French peasPetits pois, the small early peas; a cup measure of this kind often meant the canned French peas rather than fresh. If canned, they are already cooked: fold them in during the last two or three minutes only to heat through.
- Small whole onionsPearl or small boiling onions, peeled and left intact so they hold their shape. Frozen peeled pearl onions work and save the blanching.
- Seasoning"Well seasoned with salt and pepper" is the whole flavour base here, so salt the broth early and taste it before the vegetables go in; a bay leaf and a few parsley stems are in keeping.
- ServingServed on a platter, the broth is a moistening spoonful rather than a sauce. If you want it to cling, reduce the cooking liquid hard for a few minutes after lifting out the chicken, or thicken it with a small beurre manié.
- YieldServes four generously from a 4-5 lb bird.
Books of this kind — a dish a day, each pinned to a country — pinned recipes to nationalities. The nationality is often a gesture rather than a lineage, and this one is loose: chicken stewed with vegetables and mushrooms is common across Russia and Eastern Europe, but nothing here is distinctly Russian except the label. What the entry does record accurately is how a good bird was handled before roasting chickens became cheap: jointed, put in a pot with water, and stretched into a platter for a family by way of whatever vegetables were on hand.