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FOWL, TO ROAST (German method)
Roast for half an hour before the fire a fine fowl that has been well larded and stuffed with forcemeat. Take it from the spit and remove to a stewpan. Put butter over the breast, sprinkle it with salt, and pour in a cup of milk or nice veal broth. Cover it closely, but baste occasionally and steam slowly. When tender, which will be in about three-quarters of an hour, serve the fowl with the sauce thickened in the dish, and a garnish of sliced lemon. Use about a tea-spoonful of arrowroot or cornflour for the thickening.
A two-stage method: a hard sear at the fire, then a slow braise in milk or broth. The braise is what makes it work, so do not shorten it.
- What "a fine fowl" meansIn period usage the word means a domestic chicken, often an older and tougher bird than a modern broiler, which may be why a further three-quarters of an hour of steaming is wanted. Use a 4-5 lb roasting chicken, or a genuine stewing hen if your butcher has one.
- Instead of the spitThe first half hour is chiefly to colour and set the skin. A 425F oven, or a covered kettle grill, does much the same job; the bird should be browned but still well short of done when it comes out.
- The braise, not the roast, cooks itCovered closely with butter, salt and about a cup of liquid, on the lowest steady simmer. The pan should whisper, not bubble. A 325F oven with the lid on is easier to control than a burner.
- DonenessThree-quarters of an hour is right for a 4-5 lb bird but check rather than trust it: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, and 165F in the centre of the forcemeat as well.
- ForcemeatPeriod forcemeat is a bound stuffing of minced veal or pork, breadcrumbs, suet, egg and herbs. Any sausage-based stuffing stands in. Pack it loosely; a tightly stuffed cavity is what keeps stuffing below temperature while the bird overcooks.
- LardingThreading strips of pork fat through the breast with a larding needle. Modern birds are fatter and the needle is scarce; barding, meaning a sheet of caul fat, bacon or buttered paper laid over the breast for the roasting stage, gives much the same protection.
- MeasuresCup measures were not standardised here; take it as roughly 8 fl oz, i.e. a teacup to breakfast cup of liquid. A teaspoonful of arrowroot or cornflour is a light thickening, meant to give the pan liquid body rather than turn it into gravy; slake it in cold liquid before stirring it in. If you use milk, keep the heat low so it does not catch or split.
- ServingA 4-5 lb bird with stuffing feeds four to five. Carve, spoon the thickened pan sauce over, and set the lemon slices on the dish rather than on the meat.
Recipes labelled "German method" in Victorian English cookbooks often finish in milk: birds and joints browned first, then covered and steamed in milk or a light broth until tender, a habit with a parallel in the French practice of poaching poultry in milk. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, an enormous alphabetical compendium of the 1870s-80s, worked this way, gathering national variants under one headword so a cook could look up FOWL and find English, French and German treatments side by side. The two-stage approach would also have suited a practical problem of the period: a hen past laying age was too tough for straight roasting, so the spit gave colour and the covered pan gave tenderness. Arrowroot was favoured in the nineteenth century as lighter and clearer than a flour roux, and sliced lemon was a common garnish for dishes served in a pale sauce.