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Fried Chicken (Dress clean and disjoint two)
Dress, clean and disjoint two chickens. Rub chicken over with a half lemon cut in half lengthwise, sprinkle with salt, pepper and dredge with flour. Sauté in hot Cottolene until richly browned, turning often. Reduce heat, cover and let cook slowly until tender. It may be necessary to add a little moisture (about 1/4 cup of hot stock or water). Remove to serving platter and surround with Corn Fritters. Pass Cream Gravy. 1/4 cup butter. 1 slice onion. 1/4 cup flour.
A straightforward pan-fried chicken from a cookbook underwritten by a shortening manufacturer, which explains the branded fat. The gravy ingredients are listed but not explained, so most of the modernizing is filling in what the original assumed its reader knew.
- CottoleneA commercial shortening of cottonseed oil stiffened with beef suet, sold by the N. K. Fairbank Company and long off the market. Lard, vegetable shortening, or a neutral high-smoke-point oil all work; about 1/2 inch in a heavy skillet.
- "Dress, clean and disjoint"Dressing meant plucking and drawing a bird bought whole or nearly so. Buy two chickens cut into eight pieces each, or cut them down yourself. Frying chickens of the period were generally smaller than modern birds, so a pair of modern 3 1/2 to 4 lb chickens gives more meat than you likely want; one bird plus extra thighs may suit better.
- The lemon rubThis is the step worth keeping. Rubbing the cut pieces with lemon before salting and dredging brightens the skin and helps the flour adhere. Let the salted, floured pieces sit ten minutes before they hit the fat so the coating sets.
- Browning, then coveringBrown hard and uncovered first, over medium-high heat, turning often as instructed. Only then lower the heat and cover. Covering too early steams the crust soft.
- Doneness"Until tender" means about 25 to 35 minutes of covered cooking for average pieces. Thighs and drumsticks should read 175F at the bone, breast 165F. Uncover for the last few minutes to firm the coating back up.
- Cream gravyThe three trailing ingredients are the gravy, given without method or liquid. Cook the onion slice in the butter, stir in the flour, cook it a minute or two, then whisk in about 2 cups of milk or half milk and half chicken stock; the original quantity is not stated. Remove the onion, season, and serve separately as directed.
- Corn frittersThe garnish is a separate recipe elsewhere in the book. Any corn fritter batter serves; fry them while the chicken rests so both go out hot.
- YieldNo yield is given; two chickens should feed roughly six to eight.
52 Sunday Dinners was compiled by Elizabeth O. Hiller and issued by the N. K. Fairbank Company to promote Cottolene, its cottonseed-oil-and-beef-suet shortening, which is why the brand name appears inside the instructions rather than in an advertisement alongside them. Cottonseed oil was an industrial byproduct of the Southern cotton crop that food manufacturers spent the late nineteenth century turning into a cheap substitute for lard, and cookbooks distributed free with the product were a standard way of teaching cooks to reach for it. The dish itself is ordinary American skillet chicken: sautéed in about half an inch of fat, then covered and cooked gently through, a method often contrasted with the fully submerged deep-frying that became more common later, though the evidence here does not settle the point. Pairing it with corn fritters and a milk-based cream gravy places it squarely in the domestic-science menu tradition, where a Sunday dinner was planned as a whole plate rather than a single recipe.