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Vermicelli with Boiled Chicken
Truss a tender chicken for boiling, put it into a stewpan with 2 pounds of the cushion of bacon into which 3 or 4 cloves have been stuck. Add a small piece of white roux, or, failing this, half an ounce of butter mixed smoothly with flour, pour over it as much white stock as will cover it, and let all stew gently together for three-quarters of an hour. Throw into the stock 2 ounces of vermicelli, and boil it till tender. Take up the fowl and bacon, and place them in separate dishes. Skim the stock, and pour it with the vermicelli over the fowl. Serve very hot. Time, two hours.
Spaghetti is the name given to second or medium-sized tubing. In their order come macaroni, coarse; spaghetti, medium, and vermicelli, very fine. Spaghetti can be prepared by any form given in recipes.
A one-pot poached chicken with a piece of bacon for seasoning, finished by cooking the pasta in the resulting broth. The instructions are terse about the two things that matter most: how long the bird actually needs, and how much salt the bacon contributes.
- Cook the bird to temperature, not the clockThree-quarters of an hour of gentle stewing may not bring a whole chicken of modern size to a safe 165F at the thigh joint, though the recipe's own heading allows two hours in all. A 3-4 lb bird needs roughly an hour to an hour and a quarter at a bare simmer; check the deepest part of the thigh with a thermometer before taking it up.
- Cushion of baconAn old butcher's term for a boned, fleshy piece of cured pig, usually from the fore-end or shoulder -- essentially a small piece of unsliced bacon or a green (unsmoked) gammon piece. A 2 lb chunk of slab bacon or a small ham hock does the same work; the cloves are stuck into the bacon as the recipe directs.
- SaltTwo pounds of cured pork in a covered pan of stock will make the broth salty on its own. Use unsalted stock, add no salt at the start, and taste only after the bacon comes out. If your bacon is heavily cured, blanch it five minutes in fresh water first and discard that water.
- White rouxEqual weights of butter and flour cooked together without colouring. Half an ounce of butter is about one tablespoon; at equal weight the flour comes to roughly two tablespoons -- enough only to give the broth a little body, not to thicken it into sauce.
- White stockAn unroasted chicken or veal stock, pale and unseasoned. A light commercial low-sodium chicken broth is the practical substitute; avoid anything dark or heavily reduced, as the point is a clear pale liquid.
- Vermicelli in the brothTwo ounces is a modest amount, and it is cooked in the stock rather than in water, so it thickens the liquid slightly as its starch releases. Add it only once the chicken is out or nearly done — fine vermicelli is tender in three to five minutes and turns to mush if it sits in hot broth.
- SkimmingWith that much bacon the surface will carry a good deal of fat. Skim thoroughly, or chill the broth briefly and lift the fat off, before pouring it over the fowl.
- ServingFeeds four as written. Carve the chicken, slice the bacon thin and pass it separately as the recipe directs, and ladle the broth and pasta over the meat in warmed soup plates — it eats as a light stew rather than a dry pasta dish.