Home › The Principles of Cookery › Capon, Stuffed and Roasted
Capon, Stuffed and Roasted
Shred four ounces of suet very finely, and mix with it half the quantity of ham, half a pound of bread-crumbs, a tea-spoonful of chopped parsley, and the same of marjoram and thyme, two or three grains of cayenne, a little salt and pounded mace, and an inch of lemon-rind finely chopped. When these are thoroughly mixed, bind them together with two eggs, well beaten. Stuff the capon with this forcemeat, cover it with buttered paper, and roast it. Baste it frequently. Serve it with some good brown gravy and bread-sauce in a tureen. Time to roast, one hour. Probable cost, from 2s. 6d. to 4s. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A Victorian roast bird with a plain suet-and-ham forcemeat. The instructions assume a cook who already knows how to manage a spit or a coal range, so the two things missing are the oven temperature and a realistic roasting time.
- What a capon isA capon is a castrated cockerel, fattened so that it carries more fat and a higher proportion of breast meat than an ordinary fowl; market birds were commonly larger than a roasting chicken. They are hard to find today, and a roasting chicken of about 5-6 lb is the usual substitute, or a small turkey if you want a bigger bird.
- The proportions"Half the quantity of ham" means 2 oz of ham to the 4 oz of suet. Half a pound of breadcrumbs is 8 oz, roughly 4 cups of loose fresh crumbs — a generous amount, and the mixture should be moist but not wet after the two eggs go in.
- SuetBeef suet is sold shredded and boxed in some markets and by butchers on request. It gives the forcemeat its characteristic dryness and richness; unsalted butter, chilled and grated, is the nearest everyday stand-in but produces a softer stuffing.
- Oven and timeThe recipe gives no oven setting; a moderate oven of about 350F suits. One hour is short for a large capon: roughly 20 minutes per pound plus 20 minutes is a safer guide, with a thermometer reading 165F in the thickest part of the thigh. A stuffed bird needs the stuffing itself to reach 165F as well, which is one reason the forcemeat is often baked separately in a dish today.
- Buttered paperA sheet of greased paper laid over the breast to keep it from drying before the legs are done. Foil does the same job; remove it for the last 20 minutes to colour the skin.
- Pounded maceMace is the outer covering of the nutmeg seed, warmer and less sweet than nutmeg itself. Ground mace from a jar is fine; use about a quarter teaspoon, as it dominates quickly.
- Bread sauceThe recipe assumes you have the sauce already: milk infused with onion and clove, thickened with breadcrumbs and finished with butter. Send it to table separately as directed, hot but not boiling.
- Cost and yield2s. 6d. to 4s. is the probable cost of the dish in Victorian money and tells you nothing useful today except that a capon was a middling luxury. The recipe's own estimate is four or five persons; a larger bird would of course stretch further.
Capons were a staple of European feast cookery for centuries: castrating a young cockerel stops it fighting, keeps it docile in the coop and diverts its growth into fat and breast meat, giving a bird more tender than a stewing hen and far larger than a spring chicken. The forcemeat here is the standard English one of the period — suet, crumbs, ham for savour, and the trio of parsley, marjoram and thyme — and the pairing with bread sauce is the same convention that still attaches to roast chicken and turkey in Britain. Capon production has largely disappeared from English-speaking markets, a decline usually attributed to a mix of welfare concerns and the rise of modern fast-growing broiler breeds that deliver a large-breasted bird without the operation, which is why the word now turns up mostly in old cookbooks and in French and Italian holiday cooking.