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Curried Chicken
Clean and dress a 3-pound chicken and cut in pieces for serving. Put 1/3 cup Crisco in a hot frying pan, add chicken, and cook 10 minutes, tightly covered. Then add liver and gizzard, and continue cooking for 10 minutes longer. Cut 2 medium-sized onions in thin slices, and add to chicken with 2 teaspoons salt and 1 tablespoon curry powder. Add sufficient boiling water to cover, and simmer until chicken is tender. Remove chicken, strain liquor, and thicken it with a roux of flour and water. Make border of boiled rice around platter or serving dish, arrange chicken in center, and pour curry sauce over it.
A straightforward braised curry from the Crisco era, written for a cook who was expected to know how long a chicken takes. A few of the instructions need translating.
- Crisco, and what to use insteadCrisco was the sponsor of this book, which is why it appears in place of butter or lard. One-third cup of any neutral fat works; ghee, butter with a spoonful of oil, or plain vegetable oil all give a better result than modern shortening.
- "Clean and dress"This means pluck, singe and draw a whole bird. A supermarket chicken arrives already done; buy a 3 lb bird and joint it into eight pieces, or buy the pieces.
- Liver and gizzardThese come in the giblet bag if you are lucky. The gizzard needs the tough silverskin trimmed off and is chewy unless it simmers the full time; the liver goes soft and clouds the sauce, so some cooks add it only in the last few minutes.
- The bloom is the hingeCurry powder added straight to liquid tastes raw and dusty. Stir the tablespoon into the hot fat with the onions for a minute before the water goes in, until it smells toasted rather than sharp.
- Cooking time"Simmer until tender" is 35 to 45 minutes for jointed chicken at a bare simmer. Breast pieces are done well before thighs; pull them early if you care.
- The "roux of flour and water"A true roux is flour cooked in fat. What is meant here is a slurry: about 2 tablespoons flour whisked smooth into cold water, stirred into the strained simmering liquor and boiled a minute or two to lose the floury taste.
- SaltTwo teaspoons for a 3 lb bird plus enough water to cover is on the light side once the liquid reduces into a sauce. Season the finished sauce again after thickening.
- YieldFour servings, generous, with about 1 1/2 cups raw rice for the border.
This comes from a period when "curry" in American and British domestic cookery meant a commercial curry powder stirred into a braise, rather than any particular regional dish. Blended curry powders were sold in Britain from the late eighteenth century onward and reached American grocers as a standard shelf spice; a tablespoon of it in a chicken stew, ringed with boiled rice, was a familiar weeknight entry in the household calendar. The rice border itself is a serving convention of the era, the same trick used for creamed dishes and hashes, meant to make a plain braise look composed on a platter. The Crisco in the pan places the page: this book was published to promote the new hydrogenated shortening, and the recipe uses the product in place of butter, lard or drippings.