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Planked Chicken (Cream together cup Crisco)
Cream together 1/4 cup Crisco, 1 teaspoon minced onion, 1/4 tablespoon each of minced red pepper, green pepper, and parsley, 1/2 clove minced garlic, and 1 teaspoon lemon juice.
Split 1 young chicken as for broiling, place in pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dot over with Crisco, and bake until nearly done in a quick oven. Then Crisco plank, arrange upon it border made from 2 cups of hot mashed potatoes to which have been added seasoning and beaten yolks of 3 eggs. This is put on with a pastry tube and may be made as fanciful as desired, with rosettes and pyramids. Brush over with beaten egg diluted slightly with water, and place chicken in center. Peel and saute 8 large mushroom caps, place on chicken (which has been spread with prepared butter), place in very hot oven to brown potatoes and finish cooking chicken. Serve on plank at once.
A Crisco-company recipe from the era when the plank — a thick seasoned hardwood board that goes straight into the oven and then to the table — was standard restaurant showmanship. Two things need translating: the ovens, and the fact that "Crisco" here is used as a verb.
- "Crisco plank"This means grease the plank with shortening, not buy a special one. Use a thick untreated hardwood plank (oak, maple, or hickory, at least an inch thick), well oiled and preheated; thin or resinous wood will crack, scorch or taint the food.
- Quick oven, then very hot"Quick" in period usage is roughly 400-450F, which is where the split chicken bakes until nearly done. "Very hot" is hotter again, somewhere around 450-500F, for the final browning of the potato border; it takes only a few minutes -- watch the piped rosettes, which colour fast.
- "Prepared butter"The creamed mixture in the first sentence. It contains no butter at all; the compound-butter language survived even though the fat here is Crisco. Make it first and hold it at room temperature so it spreads.
- 1/4 tablespoonAn odd measure even by the standards of its own day; read it as three-quarters of a teaspoon of each of the minced peppers and parsley. The quantities are decorative rather than structural, so precision is not critical.
- Crisco itselfIntroduced in 1911 and still sold, though reformulated to remove partially hydrogenated oil. Modern all-vegetable shortening behaves the same for greasing and creaming; unsalted butter works if you would rather have the flavour, but it will brown sooner in the very hot oven.
- Doneness"Nearly done" then "finish cooking" is guesswork by modern standards. Take the thigh to 175°F and the breast to 165°F on an instant-read thermometer; the second high-heat stage should be short, so most of the cooking has to happen in the first bake.
- Potato pipingThe egg yolks set the border so it holds its shape and takes colour. The mash must be stiff and hot, and dry — a wet purée will slump off the plank. Use a large star tip and pipe a raised wall, not a flat ring, so the juices stay contained.
- MushroomsPeeling caps was normal practice and is unnecessary now; wipe and trim them. Sauté until they have given up their liquid, or they will weep onto the browned potatoes.
- YieldA "young chicken as for broiling" is a 2–2½ lb bird, serving two generously. Scale the potato border and mushrooms accordingly if you use a modern 3½–4 lb chicken, and expect a longer first bake.
A Calendar of Dinners was written by Marion Harris Neil for Procter & Gamble in the years after Crisco's 1911 launch, and its purpose is visible in every line: shortening replaces butter for creaming and grease for the plank. Planked cooking itself is older and American — generally traced to planked shad cooked on boards before an open fire along the Atlantic seaboard — and by the 1900s it had migrated indoors to hotel and chophouse menus, where the sizzling board arriving at the table did the work of presentation. The piped potato border with egg yolk is straight out of professional practice, scaled down for a domestic cook with a pastry tube.