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Fowl, Braised, with Tomatoes
Put a stewpan over the fire, and when hot, rub a clove of garlic over the bottom two or three times. Lay a fowl in the pan, prepared as if for boiling, the breast being covered with well-buttered paper. Use the best part of a quarter of a pound of butter on the paper, and pour in a large breakfast-cupful of strong white gravy. Bring the gravy to a boil, and then draw it aside to simmer gently. Baste frequently with the gravy for three-quarters of an hour, then add half a dozen tomatoes sliced, a shallot minced, salt, pepper, a grain of cayenne, the quarter of a salt-spoonful of powdered ginger, the same of nutmeg, and half a salt-spoonful of flour of mustard. Put the tomatoes in last, with the juice, strained, of a large lemon, and a wine-glassful of Marsala. Let it come to a boil, but continue to simmer slowly, and baste for an hour or more. Serve the fowl on a hot dish, with the sauce poured over. Time to simmer fowl in gravy, two hours. Sufficient for a dish.
A pot-braise rather than a roast: the bird cooks half-submerged in stock under a buttered paper, and the tomato sauce is built in the same pan at the end. The main adjustment is the bird itself.
- "Fowl" is not a modern chickenA fowl was a mature laying hen, tough-fleshed and full of connective tissue, which is why two hours of simmering is specified. A supermarket chicken of 4-5 lb is done in about 1 hour 15 minutes at a bare simmer; take the internal temperature at the thigh and stop at 165F, or the breast will be dry and stringy long before the clock runs out.
- "Prepared as if for boiling"That means trussed compactly, legs tucked in, wing tips folded back, and not skewered or larded as for roasting. A trussed bird holds its shape in liquid and cooks evenly.
- A large breakfast-cupfulRoughly 10-12 fl oz, so about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups. "Strong white gravy" is not flour gravy but a reduced pale stock made from veal or chicken bones; a good unsalted chicken stock reduced by a third gives the same body.
- The buttered paperA paper laid directly over the breast with the butter spread on it; 'the best part of a quarter of a pound' reads as roughly 3 oz. It bastes the exposed meat as the butter melts and stops the breast drying above the liquid line. Parchment is the closest modern equivalent.
- Salt-spoons and wine-glassesA salt-spoon is a quarter teaspoon, so a quarter of one is a pinch of ginger and the same of nutmeg -- barely detectable individually, which is the point. Half a salt-spoon of mustard is about 1/8 teaspoon. A wine-glassful of Marsala is 2 fl oz.
- Flour of mustardDry mustard powder, not made mustard and not the seed. Add it with the other dry spices so it disperses in the hot liquid.
- The tomatoes go in lastThe recipe holds them back, so the final hour of simmering is finishing time rather than the main tenderising. On a modern bird, add them for the final 25-30 minutes only. Six tomatoes comes to about 1 1/2 lb of ripe fruit, peeled if you want a smooth sauce.
- Finishing the sauceAfter the bird comes out the sauce will be thin and buttery. Boil it down hard for a few minutes on the stovetop to concentrate it, then taste for salt and lemon before pouring over.
- Yield"Sufficient for a dish" means one bird as a single course: four servings, or six as part of a larger meal.
Cassell's belongs to the 1870s, by which time the tomato was appearing in general household dictionaries rather than only in books on French or Italian cookery. The recipe's construction is telling: the garlic is not chopped into the dish but merely rubbed round the hot pan two or three times, a gesture toward Mediterranean flavour that stops well short of committing to it, while the shallot, Marsala, lemon and warm spices sit comfortably within older English practice. Braising a bird whole in a stewpan under buttered paper suited a hen past her laying, tough meat that roasting would ruin, and the long slow simmer here is a technique aimed at that bird rather than at the tender young poultry the same instructions would meet today.