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Fricassee of Chicken
Dress, singe, clean and cut two young chickens in pieces for serving. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dredge with flour, brown richly in equal parts of Cottolene and butter, turning often that pieces may be evenly browned. Then cover with boiling water to which add a bit of bay leaf, one-half teaspoon peppercorns, a spray of parsley, six slices carrot and three slices onion. Cover and simmer until chicken is tender (from one to one and one-quarter hours). Remove chicken from stock, cover and keep warm; strain stock; there should be two cups. Melt four tablespoons butter in a sauce pan, add four tablespoons flour, stir to a paste, then gradually pour on the two cups hot stock, stirring constantly; let simmer ten minutes. Remove from range, add one cup of hot cream and the yolks of two eggs slightly beaten. Reheat chicken in sauce (do not allow sauce to boil after adding yolks). Serve with Waffles.
A brown fricassee finished with an egg-and-cream liaison. Everything hinges on the last step: once the yolks go in, the sauce must never boil.
- The yolksBeat the yolks with the hot cream, then temper by whisking in a ladle of the hot sauce before returning everything to the pan. Hold the finished sauce below about 180F; a boil will scramble the yolks and break the sauce into curds.
- CottoleneA branded cottonseed-oil shortening sold by the N. K. Fairbank Company, and no longer made. Any neutral solid or liquid fat works in its place; equal parts butter and a neutral oil gives the browning the recipe wants without the butter scorching.
- "Dress, singe, clean"Instructions for a bird bought whole with pinfeathers still in it. A modern chicken needs only to be cut into eight or ten serving pieces.
- Two young chickensBroilers of roughly 2 to 2 1/2 lb each. One 4 to 5 lb chicken cut up is the practical equivalent, though the larger bird's breast will dry if it goes the full simmering time.
- Cooking timeOne to one and a quarter hours suits older, tougher birds. Today, pull the breast pieces at 30 to 40 minutes once they read 165F and let the thighs and drumsticks go on to about an hour.
- The two cups of stockAfter straining, the braising liquid may well measure more than the two cups the recipe expects. Reduce it to two, or the sauce will come out thinner than intended.
- Yield and servingServes six to eight. The waffles are the starch here, in place of rice or biscuits; make them plain and unsweetened, and have them ready before the sauce is finished.
Fricassee, from the French fricasser, sits between a sauté and a stew: the meat is cooked in fat, then finished in its own liquid. The classic distinction is between a white fricassee, where the chicken is stewed without colour, and a brown one like this, where the pieces are floured and richly browned first. The finish with egg yolks and cream is a liaison, an old French thickening that predates the flour-based sauces and here does double duty on top of the roux. Serving it over waffles is an American habit, common in Pennsylvania and Maryland cooking and often traced to the same tradition that gave us chicken and biscuits. The specified fat is worth noting: 52 Sunday Dinners was issued as a promotional cookbook for Cottolene, and its author, Elizabeth O. Hiller, names the shortening throughout, which is why it turns up here in a dish that would otherwise call simply for butter and drippings.