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Fowl, Fried
Divide the remains of a cold fowl into convenient-sized pieces; shred two or three shallots very fine, strew them with salt and cayenne, put the meat into a dish, and pour in vinegar enough to steep it. Take out the fowl in an hour, drain, and fry, dipping each piece into batter; use lard for frying, and let the pieces be nicely browned. Garnish with rolled bacon and fried parsley. For the batter, mix half a pound of flour with half a pint of hot water to a cream-like batter, stir in two ounces of butter, and the whites of a couple of eggs beaten to a froth. Time, ten minutes to fry. Probable cost, 9d., exclusive of fowl.
A Victorian way of turning yesterday's roast into something worth serving again. The hinge is the batter: hot water and flour make a thick, almost paste-like coating that clings to cold cooked meat, and the whisked whites are what keep it from being leaden.
- The batter proportionsHalf a pound of flour is about 1¾ cups; half a pint in a British book of this date is 10 fl oz, not 8. Add the water gradually — you want a coating batter that just falls from the spoon, and you may not need all of it.
- Fold, don't stir, the whitesThe instruction says stir, but the whites are the only leavening here. Let the scalded flour paste cool to lukewarm first, or the froth collapses and the crust turns to armour.
- The vinegar hourAn hour in shallots, salt, cayenne and vinegar is a short pickle, not a tenderiser — the meat is already cooked. Drain and blot the pieces properly dry or the batter will slide off.
- Frying medium and temperatureLard is what the recipe specifies and it gives the period flavour; any neutral oil works as well. Bring it to 350–375°F. The ten minutes given is for the batter to colour and the meat to heat through, so keep the pieces on the smaller side.
- Rolled baconThin rashers rolled into cylinders, skewered, and grilled or baked until crisp. Streaky bacon rolls in a 400°F oven for 12–15 minutes give the same effect.
- Fried parsleyWhole sprigs, bone dry, dropped into the hot fat for a few seconds until they stop sputtering and turn brilliant green. Wet parsley will spit violently; dry it thoroughly on a cloth first.
- Yield and costThe remains of one fowl will probably make three or four servings. The 9d. is explicitly "exclusive of fowl," so it covers only the batter and marinade ingredients — the bird itself was already paid for.
Cassell's devotes considerable space to the second appearance of a joint, with entries for fowl hashed, curried, minced, scalloped and, here, fried. A roast fowl was a substantial purchase, and making use of what came back from the table was part of the cook's job. Vinegar-and-onion marinades for meat that had lost its first savour were already familiar in eighteenth-century cookery, and this recipe belongs to that family. The scalded-flour batter, made with hot water rather than milk, is the economical version — no milk, only two whites, and the butter doing the enriching.