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Fowl, Marinaded
Cut a fine fowl into joints, and then into neat pieces. Pour over them, on a dish, equal quantities of oil and lemon-juice, a large wine-glassful of each. Shred a couple of shallots, and lay a bunch of herbs and some springs of parsley about them; season with a dessert-spoonful of pepper mixed. The fowl should be skinned before being put into the marinade, and well drained when removed from it. Fry in egg and bread-crumbs. Strain as much of the marinade as will be required for gravy. Make it hot, and add a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, and the same of brown roux. Serve with the fowl in the centre, and the gravy poured round it. Time, six hours to lie in marinade; to fry, twenty minutes.
A Victorian way with a whole bird: joint it, steep it in oil and lemon, crumb it and fry it, then build a quick sauce from the strained marinade. Two things need attention — the marinade must be brought to a proper boil before it becomes gravy, and the seasoning as written is very heavy.
- Boil the marinade hardThe strained liquid has been sitting in contact with raw chicken for six hours. "Make it hot" is not enough; bring it to a full rolling boil for at least a minute or two before adding the ketchup and roux.
- Wine-glassfulA wine-glass in Victorian books is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, though the measure was not standard and the recipe asks for a *large* one; call it 1/4 cup or a little more of each, enough to coat a jointed bird turned once or twice rather than to submerge it.
- Chill the marinadeSix hours was meant for a cold larder. Marinate in the refrigerator, covered, and turn the pieces two or three times.
- "Pepper mixed"Probably a compound pepper of the kind kept in period kitchens, black pepper cut with warm spices, though the recipe does not say what went into it. A dessertspoonful is two level teaspoons across a whole fowl, which is aggressive by modern palates; a teaspoon is plenty unless you like it fiery.
- Shallots and herbsThe "bunch of herbs" is presumably a bouquet garni of the usual sort, tied; the recipe does not name its contents, and the sprigs of parsley are listed separately. The herbs flavour the marinade and are caught and discarded when the liquid is strained for gravy.
- Brown rouxEqual weights of butter and flour cooked together until nut-brown. Cook it separately and whisk it into the boiling liquid, or the sauce will taste of raw flour.
- Mushroom ketchupA thin, dark, salty mushroom extract, not the tomato sauce. Still sold by specialist grocers; a splash of Worcestershire sauce plus a little soy gives a comparable savoury depth.
- Frying timeThe recipe says only "fry", with no fat temperature given; twenty minutes suits frying in deep fat hot enough to cook thick joints through without burning the crumb. Breast pieces will be done well before drumsticks and thighs; cook to 165F and take the pieces out as they are ready.
- Skinning mattersSkinning likely helps in practice: egg and crumb adhere better to bare flesh than to wet skin, and the marinade reaches the meat directly.
- YieldA "fine fowl" of 4-5 lb, jointed and cut small, serves four to six as a main course.
Marinading — from the French mariner, to steep in brine or a seasoned liquid — arrived in English kitchens largely through French professional cookery, and was standard practice for firming and flavouring meat before frying. Cutting the bird into "neat pieces," crumbing and frying it, then dressing it with a sauce built on the same marinade is thrift dressed as technique, and the mushroom ketchup and brown roux are the two workhorses of the period's brown sauces, kept in the store cupboard and the stockpot respectively. The arrangement — the fowl heaped in the centre, the gravy poured round rather than over — is characteristic of the period's service, and is often said to have been a way of keeping a crisp coating crisp on the dish.