Home › The Principles of Cookery › Capon, Roast
Capon, Roast
Truss a capon firmly for roasting. Fasten some oiled paper over the breast, and roast it before a good fire. When sufficiently cooked take it down, and place it on a hot dish with water-cress round it. Send some good gravy to table with it. Time, to roast, one hour. Probable cost, from 2s. 6d. to 4s. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A spit-roasting instruction stripped to its bones. The two things it assumes — a live fire and a bird you cannot buy — are the two things that need translating.
- What a capon isA young cockerel castrated to fatten it, producing more fat and a broader breast than an ordinary bird. Genuine capons are rare outside specialist butchers; a good 4–5 lb free-range chicken behaves the same way, though it will be leaner and dry out sooner.
- "Before a good fire" means an oven nowThe bird was hung on a spit in front of radiant heat and turned, with a dripping pan below. In an oven, 400F for the first 20 minutes, then 350F, gets you closest to that browned exterior. A rotisserie attachment is nearer still.
- Oiled paperPaper brushed with oil or dripping laid over the breast to stop it scorching while the legs catch up; it serves the same protective purpose as barding, though barding proper used fat or bacon. Buttered foil or baking parchment does the same job; remove it for the last 20 minutes to let the skin colour.
- One hour is shortAn hour suits a small bird kept close to a fierce fire and basted constantly. For a 4–5 lb bird in an oven, expect 1 hour 20 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes, and go by temperature: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, away from the bone.
- Trussing "firmly"The point is not tidiness but that the bird held its shape while rotating on a spit. In an oven, tying the legs and tucking the wing tips is enough, and leaving it loosely trussed cooks the thighs faster.
- "Good gravy"The book assumes a stockpot in the house. Deglaze the roasting tin with a little chicken stock and the skimmed pan juices; the recipe does not say whether the gravy was thickened, and a thin one suits the dish.
- WatercressA common accompaniment to roast fowl rather than pure decoration, its pepperiness cutting the fat. Add it at the table if you want it crisp, since it wilts quickly on a hot dish.
- Cost and yield2s. 6d. to 4s. was a substantial outlay for a Victorian household, which tells you this was a company dish. Four to five servings still holds for a 4–5 lb bird.
Capons were bred for the table across Europe from at least the Roman period and remained the prestige roasting fowl in Britain into the nineteenth century, since ordinary chickens were kept for eggs and killed old and tough. Castration halted the bird's sexual development, so it fattened evenly and grew larger and more tender than a cockerel, and Cassell's gives it its own entry. The trade is generally said to have faded in Britain in the twentieth century as fast-growing broiler breeds made the practice commercially pointless, and surgical caponisation is now banned or restricted in a number of countries. The recipe's brevity is characteristic of the section it sits in: roasting before an open fire was assumed knowledge, and the compiler bothered only to note the paper over the breast, the watercress, and the price.