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Chicken, Devilled
The best parts of chicken for a devil are the wings and legs. Remove the skin, score the flesh deeply in several places, and rub in a fiery mixture made of salt, pepper, cayenne, mustard, anchovy, and butter. This business should be done overnight. Broil over a clear fire, and serve the fowl hot on a napkin. No sauce is required. Time, ten or twelve minutes to broil.
A devil is a seasoning method rather than a fixed formula, and Cassell's gives no quantities at all. The points below fill in the ratios, the fire, and the one thing that decides whether the paste stays on the meat.
- Score deeply, and mean itThe scoring is the hinge of the recipe: the paste has nothing to cling to on bare, skinned flesh, so the cuts need to be deep ones. Several slashes per joint, then work the paste in with your thumb.
- A workable pasteFor four joints: 2 tbsp softened butter, 2 tsp English mustard (or 1 tsp mustard powder), 1 tsp anchovy paste, 1/2 tsp cayenne, black pepper, and salt only sparingly since the anchovy is already salt. Cassell's "anchovy" means anchovy essence or pounded salt anchovy; modern anchovy paste from a tube is the direct equivalent.
- Cooked chicken or rawTen or twelve minutes would suit joints already cooked, and devilling was often a way of reviving cold roast fowl, though Cassell's does not say so here. Raw legs and wings need 25 to 30 minutes and an internal reading of 165F at the thickest part, turning often so the mustard and butter do not scorch.
- "A clear fire"Coals burned down to a steady glow with no flame, since flame plus buttered paste means a flare-up. Under a domestic grill or broiler, set the rack four to five inches from the element rather than directly beneath it.
- Overnight is optional but usefulThe salt and mustard season the flesh and the butter firms up in the cuts, which helps it stay put over heat. Two hours in the refrigerator gets most of the benefit if you have not planned ahead.
- Serving on a napkinA folded linen napkin laid on the platter, which absorbs the fat and butter running off the joints. A rack over a warmed dish does the same job less picturesquely.
- YieldFour to six joints will serve two, most plausibly as a savoury course or light supper rather than as a main dish with vegetables. Cassell's gives no quantity or serving suggestion.
"Devilling" — coating something in mustard, cayenne and other hot seasonings and grilling it hard — was well established in British cookery by the early nineteenth century, and the name is generally traced to the notion of infernal heat rather than to any particular cook. It belonged to the world of the late supper, the hunting breakfast and the club savoury, and it was above all a use for cold roast fowl or game: the wings and legs specified here are the joints least rewarding when carved cold from a bird, so devilling gave them a second and better life. A devil is less a dish than a treatment, applicable to chicken, turkey, bones of any roast, kidneys or even biscuits.