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Fowl, Curried
Cut up a young fowl; roll each piece in a mixture of curry-powder and flour, three dessert-spoonfuls of each. Cut four large onions into rings, and divide the rings into bits an inch in length; fry a light brown in two ounces of butter, with a small piece of garlic if approved of. Add the pieces of fowl, and two more ounces of butter. Put all into a stewpan, and stew gently with half a pint of hot milk, broth, or water. Season to taste with salt, and cover well. The sauce should be reduced one-third, to which squeeze in the juice of half a lemon, before being sent to table. Rice should accompany fowl prepared in this manner, either round the dish or separate.
A straightforward braised curry of the Anglo-Indian kind, and it works as written once the old measures are translated. The main thing to watch is the flour-and-curry coating, which will catch and burn if the pan runs dry.
- Dessert-spoonfulAn English dessertspoon is two teaspoons, roughly 10 ml. Three of them is about two tablespoons each of curry powder and flour.
- Half a pintAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, or 1¼ US cups. Stock gives a far better result than water; milk will thicken and can catch, so keep the heat low if you use it.
- A young fowlA 3 to 3½ lb chicken, jointed into eight or ten pieces on the bone. The specification of a young bird matters, since an older boiling fowl would need well over an hour.
- Butter and browningFour ounces of butter in total, half with the onions and half with the chicken. Butter alone will darken quickly at browning heat; keep the pan at a steady medium and let the onions go genuinely light brown, since they are the body of the sauce.
- Cooking timeThe original gives none. Gently simmered and covered, bone-in pieces need 35 to 45 minutes, at which point the sauce should also have reduced by about a third. Uncover for the last few minutes if it has not.
- Curry powderPeriod commercial curry powder tended to lean on turmeric, coriander and fenugreek, and was often milder than many blends sold now. Taste yours and adjust; the recipe is not built around chilli heat.
- The lemonAdded off the heat, just before serving, and it is not optional. The dish is otherwise rich and flat, and the acid is what lifts it.
- YieldServes four with rice. The recipe specifies only that rice accompany it, round the dish or separate.
Curried fowl was one of the most thoroughly domesticated of the Anglo-Indian dishes, appearing in British cookery books from the mid-eighteenth century onward and by Cassell's day so familiar that it needed no explanation. The method here is the standard English adaptation: ready-mixed commercial curry powder, sold by grocers, is used as a single seasoning rather than as spices toasted and ground for the dish. Dredging the meat in curry powder and flour follows ordinary English stewing practice, and the finish with lemon juice and a reduced sauce suggests a French instinct applied to an Indian idea. The rice may be served "either round the dish or separate" — the recipe leaves the choice open.