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CHICKEN BROTH (another way)
The best parts of a young fowl may be used for a fricassee or a grill, and the inferior parts will do for this broth; or, an old fowl may be stewed, till all the bones are bare, in a quart of water, and a little more liquid may be added if necessary. Season the broth with salt, pepper, mace, or onion, according to taste and the appetite of the invalid. When the fowl has simmered until it has parted with all its nutriment, strain the liquid through a sieve, cool it, and remove the fat before it is warmed for use. This broth is seldom cared for by those who are in good health. Time, one hour and a half, or till tender. Probable cost, 2s. to 3s. Sufficient for one quart of broth.
An invalid-cookery broth built from the trimmings left after the good meat has gone to a fricassee. It works, but it needs longer and less liquid than the original suggests.
- The hinge: skim coldThe instruction to cool the broth and lift the fat before reheating is the whole point of the method. A fowl carcass throws a great deal of fat, and chilling overnight lets it set into a cap you can lift off in one piece.
- Time and yield do not agreeAn hour and a half will not reduce an old bird's bones bare, nor extract much from them. Expect three to four hours at a bare simmer for an older fowl, topping up with water so you still finish near a quart. A quart serves two to three as a light broth.
- "Fowl" versus chickenThe recipe distinguishes a young fowl from an old one, and it is the old bird -- typically a past-laying hen -- that is meant for stewing here: tougher and more flavourful than a supermarket roaster. Backs, wings, necks and a couple of thighs from two modern chickens will give a broth of comparable body; add a split foot if your butcher has them, for gelatine.
- MaceThe dried outer covering of the nutmeg, warmer and less resinous than the seed itself. A single blade is enough for a quart; ground mace, if that is what you have, wants no more than a pinch or it dominates.
- Simmer, do not boil"Parted with all its nutriment" is Victorian shorthand for a long, quiet extraction. A rolling boil emulsifies the fat back into the liquid and clouds it, which defeats the skimming step entirely.
- CostTwo to three shillings was a real sum in Victorian terms, which is why the recipe leads with the inferior parts of a bird already bought for a fricassee or a grill, offering the whole old fowl only as an alternative.
- Seasoning for the sickThe original leaves salt to "the appetite of the invalid", i.e. to the patient's own tolerance. If you are serving it as a first course rather than as medicine, salt it properly at the end, after reduction.
Cassell's places this among the invalid cookery that occupies a good deal of space in Victorian household manuals, where broth, beef tea, arrowroot and gruel formed the recognised diet of the sick-room; before intravenous fluids, a clear savoury liquid a patient would actually swallow was treated as a genuine therapeutic tool. The frankness of "this broth is seldom cared for by those who are in good health" is characteristic of the book, which distinguishes plainly between cooking for pleasure and cooking for necessity. The economy behind it is equally of its period: a fowl was a substantial purchase, the breast and best joints went to a fricassee or a grill for the table, and the frame, neck and lesser parts were expected to yield a second meal. The idea that long simmering drew out a food's "nutriment" reflects the nutritional thinking of the day, when broths were credited with more nourishment than they in fact carry.