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Chicken a la Tartare
1 young chicken 1 egg 3/4 cupful Crisco Breadcrumbs Salt and pepper to taste Mixed pickles Tartare sauce Singe, empty, and split chicken in half; take breastbone out and sprinkle salt and pepper over. Melt 1/2 cupful Crisco in frying pan and fry chicken half hour, turning it now and then. Remove from pan and place between two dishes with heavy weight on top, till it is nearly cold. Then dip in egg beaten up, and roll in breadcrumbs. Melt remaining Crisco, then sprinkle it all over chicken; roll in breadcrumbs once more. Fry in hot Crisco to golden color. Serve at once with a garnish of chopped pickles, and tartare sauce.
A two-stage fried chicken: the bird is cooked through, pressed flat until cold, then breaded and fried a second time for the crust. The pressing step is what makes it work, and it is the step most likely to be skipped.
- The hinge: press it coldWeighting the cooked halves between two dishes compacts the meat and flattens the surface so the egg and crumbs adhere in an even sheet. If you bread it warm and loose, the coating slides off in the second frying. Give it at least an hour under a heavy pan, or refrigerate it weighted overnight.
- "Singe, empty, and split"Instructions for a freshly plucked bird: burn off the remaining pinfeathers, draw the innards, halve it down the back. A supermarket chicken needs none of this. Buy a 2 1/2 to 3 lb bird, split it, and remove the breastbone as directed so it lies flat.
- CriscoThis recipe comes from a Procter & Gamble promotional cookbook, hence the branded shortening in every ingredient list. Any neutral frying fat works: vegetable shortening, refined oil, or lard, which is what an older cook would have used.
- QuantitiesHalf the 3/4 cupful goes into the first cooking; the remainder is melted and sprinkled over the crumbed bird, an old trick for building a second crumb layer without a second egg wash. The final frying in "hot Crisco" needs additional fat beyond the 3/4 cupful listed, enough for shallow frying in a heavy skillet.
- The first fryingHalf an hour, turning, over moderate heat will cook a small split bird through. Check the thickest part of the thigh reads 165F before you press it; the second frying is for color and lasts only a few minutes and should not be relied on to finish raw meat.
- The second fryingFat at 350-375F, two to three minutes a side. Hotter and the doubled crumb coating darkens before it crisps.
- Yield and servingOne young chicken split in half serves two generously, three at a stretch. Tartare sauce here is the standard mayonnaise with chopped capers, pickles, and herbs; the chopped mixed pickles garnish repeats the same sharpness against the fried crust.
"A la tartare" in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cookery meant crumbed, grilled or fried, and served with the cold caper-and-pickle mayonnaise of the same name. The style was applied most often to chicken and to broiled fish, and it appears in English and American books throughout the period as a way of turning a plain bird into something with a crust and a sharp sauce. This particular version comes from a Crisco-sponsored cookbook of the kind published after the shortening's introduction in 1911, when the manufacturer put out recipe collections to persuade cooks to substitute hydrogenated vegetable fat for lard and butter; the branded fat in place of a generic "frying fat" is the tell.