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Fillet of Chicken Broiled
From the breast of a chicken cut the four fillets, which can be easily separated, and remove every particle of fat or skin.
Dust lightly with salt. Butter a piece of heavy white letter paper and wrap it lightly about the meat. Lay on a broiler over a clear fire and move constantly over the heat. The paper will brown and gradually char, but before it takes fireyou must lift it from the fire just before this happens-you will find the fillet nicely cooked and much less dry than if cooked directly over the coals.-E. M. K.
A neat nineteenth-century trick for keeping breast meat moist over live coals: the paper acts as a sacrificial jacket, insulating the meat while it browns and chars away. A few translations are needed before you try it.
- The hingeThe paper must char but never ignite, which means constant movement over the coals and a fire that has burned down to steady, flameless heat. Any lick of flame will set the wrapper alight and the whole point is lost.
- Four filletsFrom one bird's breast you get two large lobes and the two small tenderloins beneath them, which pull away with your fingers. Each large lobe from a modern broiler-fryer weighs 6-8 oz, considerably more than a 1900s chicken, so consider halving them horizontally for even cooking.
- Letter paperHeavy white letter paper of the period was uncoated rag or wood stock with no inks, coatings or optical brighteners. Do not substitute modern printer or wrapping paper; parchment paper is the sensible stand-in, though it browns rather than chars.
- A clear fireCoals with no flame and no smoke, glowing grey-red. In practice that is charcoal roughly 20-30 minutes after lighting, once the coals have ashed over. A wood fire still throwing flame will burn the wrapper before the meat is through, and a gas burner's flame is a poor match for the same reason.
- Timing and donenessThe original gives none. Reckon on 4-6 minutes total for a tenderloin and 8-10 for a halved breast lobe, turning often. Chicken breast is done at 165F; pull it at 160F and let it rest, since it climbs a few degrees off the heat.
- SeasoningOnly salt is called for, dusted before wrapping. Add pepper or herbs after unwrapping if you want them, along with any butter and juices caught in the paper.
- YieldThe four fillets from one chicken serve two as a main course, or four as a first course or luncheon dish.
Cooking in a greased paper wrapper is an old technique, closely related to the French papillote, and it turns up in nineteenth-century cookery wherever a lean cut had to meet a fierce fire. Chicken breast was the problem case: it has almost no fat to protect it and goes stringy in minutes over coals. The buttered paper solved that by trapping steam and butter close to the meat, and it was cheap. The initials at the end, E. M. K., suggest a contributed recipe rather than a staff one.