Pressed Chicken
Disjoint a four- or five-pound fowl, cover with boiling water and let simmer until tender, with one carrot sliced, one onion sliced, a blade or two of celery broken in inch pieces, two sprays parsley and one-half teaspoon peppercorns. Add one tablespoon salt the last hour of cooking. Drain chicken from liquor, remove the skin and bones; strain liquor, return to range and let simmer until reduced to one cup, strain and reserve. When the meat is nearly cold, cut it in small cubes or chop fine; remove all fat from liquor, reheat and add chicken, stirring it slowly, season with salt and pepper if necessary. Decorate a granite, brick-shaped bread pan with Fifth Sunday "hard boiled" eggs cut in rings or fancy shapes, over these pack the chicken mixture very carefully so as not to disturb the decorations. Cover with a buttered paper, place a weight over paper and let stand over night in a cold place. Serve with Tomato Salad.
A cold jellied loaf that sets on its own gelatin rather than on added powder, which makes the reduction step the whole recipe.
- The hinge: reduce to exactly one cupThe loaf holds together only because the cooking liquor is concentrated enough to gel. Reduce hard to a single cup and test it by chilling a spoonful on a saucer; if it stays syrupy rather than firm, keep reducing.
- "Fowl" is not a supermarket chickenIn this period a fowl was a mature laying hen, tough and rich in connective tissue. A modern 4-5 lb roasting chicken gives softer meat and weaker stock in half the time. Simmer 1 1/2 to 2 hours, and add a few chicken feet or wings to the pot for the gelatin the old bird would have supplied.
- Blades and spraysA "blade" of celery is one rib; two "sprays" of parsley are two sprigs. The half teaspoon of peppercorns is whole, and it is strained out with the vegetables.
- The pan"Granite" means graniteware, the speckled enamel-on-steel of the period; a brick-shaped bread pan is a standard loaf tin. Enamel or glass is still the right choice, since bare aluminium may take on a metallic edge over a long cold set.
- Simmer, do not boilA rolling boil clouds the liquor and shreds the meat. Keep the water barely trembling; the salt goes in only for the last hour, probably so that the reduction does not end up over-seasoned.
- "A cold place" means the refrigeratorThis is cooked meat in stock left standing overnight, which at the time meant an icebox or a cellar. Chill it below 40F throughout, and lay the weight on the buttered paper as soon as the loaf is cool enough to go in.
- Decorating the mouldSet the egg slices in place before any meat goes in, then press the warm chicken mixture down in thin layers with the back of a spoon so the rings stay put. Unmould by dipping the tin briefly in hot water.
- Yield and servingA standard loaf pan gives 6 to 8 servings sliced about half an inch thick. It keeps three or four days refrigerated, and the author calls for tomato salad alongside.
Pressed or jellied chicken belongs to the era of cold sliced loaves served at supper and at summer luncheon, cooked the day before. The technique is the same one behind brawn and head cheese: simmer a tough old bird long enough to draw the collagen out of its joints and skin, boil the liquor down until that collagen will set, then compress the meat under a weight so it slices cleanly instead of crumbling. The shaped hard-boiled egg decoration reflects the period's taste for moulded food that showed evident labour on the plate.