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Capon, Boiled
Draw and truss a fine capon, and tie a sheet of oiled or buttered paper over it. Lay it in a saucepan, with sufficient water or stock to cover it, and put with it an onion, a carrot, a bunch of sweet herbs, and a little salt. Stew it gently, and when done, take it up, and lay round the dish on which it is served four or five small cauliflowers. Pour a little bechamel over it. Time to boil, one hour. Probable cost, from 2s. 6d. to 4s. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A plain poached bird finished with a white sauce — the technique is sound, but the bird and the timing both need translating.
- The caponA capon is a castrated cockerel, fattened for tender, well-marbled flesh, and it is not a supermarket item outside a few specialist butchers around Christmas. A 4–5 lb roasting chicken is the sensible substitute; a small free-range bird will have more flavour in the poaching liquid.
- "Draw and truss"Drawing means removing the innards, which is already done for you. Trussing still matters here: tie the legs together and the wings against the body so the bird holds its shape in the liquid rather than splaying and cooking unevenly.
- The hinge: gentle heat"Stew it gently" is the whole recipe. The liquid should barely tremble, well below a boil; a rolling boil tightens the breast muscle and shreds the skin. Bring it up slowly, then hold it just below a simmer.
- Time and donenessOne hour is about right for a 4–5 lb bird held at a bare simmer, but go by temperature rather than the clock: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh. A larger bird will need proportionately longer.
- BéchamelVictorian white sauces were often built on stock as well as milk; reduce a ladleful of the strained cooking liquid into the finished sauce and it will taste of the bird rather than of flour.
- The cauliflowers"Small cauliflowers" means whole heads of a size now sold as baby cauliflower, or quartered florets from one head. Cook them separately in salted water so they stay white; boiled in the chicken liquid they go grey and muddy the stock.
- Yield and the leftoversFour to five servings, as stated. The strained poaching liquid is excellent stock and should not be poured away — it is the unstated economy behind the whole method.
Boiled fowl was the standard invalid and family dinner of the Victorian household, and Cassell's treats it plainly, as a demonstration of gentle moist cooking rather than any particular flourish. The capon itself belongs to an older poultry trade: caponising a young cockerel made him docile, fat and large, and capons were the prestige table bird in Britain from the medieval period through the nineteenth century, priced well above an ordinary hen — the 2s. 6d. to 4s. quoted here is a substantial sum for the 1870s–90s. The practice fell away in Britain in the twentieth century, partly, it is often said, through legislation on caponising, and partly because fast-growing broiler breeds made the whole exercise unnecessary. The cauliflowers and béchamel are the French-influenced finish that Victorian cookery writers applied to almost any boiled white meat, dressing a frugal method up for company.