Chickens
These, whether for boiling or roasting, should have a dressing prepared as for turkeys. Six spoonfuls of rice boiled with the chickens will cause them to look white. If the water is cold when they are put in, they will be less liable to break. They are improved by boiling a little salt pork with them. If not thus boiled, they will need salt.
For broiling, chickens should be split, the inwards taken out, and the chickens then washed. Broil very slowly till done, placing the bony side down; then turn it and brown the other side. Forty minutes is the medium time for broiling a chicken.
For roast hicken, boil the gizzard and liver by themselves, and use the water for gravy.--Mrs. Col. W.
This is a set of general methods rather than a single dish, and it assumes a bird much smaller and tougher than a modern broiler. Read it as three techniques: boiled, broiled, roasted.
- The bird itselfA nineteenth-century "chicken" was often a young bird considerably smaller than today's, perhaps two or three pounds dressed, though size varied a great deal. Modern broiler-fryers run 3½ to 4½ lb, so any timing here is likely short for a whole bird and you should cook to 165F in the thigh rather than by the clock.
- "Dressing prepared as for turkeys"The book's turkey dressing is what is meant; a period bread stuffing of this kind would generally be moistened with stock and seasoned with herbs. Stuffing must reach 165F itself, so it is safer to bake it separately and fill the cavity with aromatics only.
- Rice for whitenessRice boiled with the fowl was a standard period trick for keeping the flesh pale; it adds little in the way of flavour. Skip it if you want the poaching liquid as clear stock.
- Cold water startThis is the one instruction worth keeping. Bringing the bird up from cold water gradually sets the flesh and keeps the skin and joints intact; dropping it into a rolling boil tears the skin. Hold the pot at a bare simmer throughout, never a full boil.
- Salt porkA small piece seasons the water and adds fat. If you leave it out, salt the water yourself, tasting as it goes — the recipe says plainly that unporked birds "will need salt."
- Split for broiling"Split" means spatchcocked: cut down through the back or breast and open the bird flat. Bone side toward the heat first, as directed, so the ribs shield the meat while it cooks through.
- Forty minutes, very slowlyThis is grilling or broiling over low, steady heat, not the top element of a modern oven at full blast, which would char the skin long before the thigh cooked. On a covered grill over indirect medium heat, forty minutes is a fair estimate for a small bird; check the thickest part of the thigh.
- Gizzard and liver gravySimmer the giblets in lightly salted water until tender, chop them fine, and use the strained liquid for the gravy. The liver cooks much faster than the gizzard, so it is worth adding it late.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; judge by the size of the bird, which on this page could be a good deal smaller than a modern one.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housewives, is built out of exactly this kind of entry: not a fixed recipe but a page of accumulated practice, credited to its contributor. "Mrs. Col. W." is writing for a household that kept its own fowl, killed a bird the morning it was wanted, and needed advice on handling chickens of wildly varying age and size — hence the emphasis on judgment rather than exact quantities. The concern with making boiled chicken "look white" belongs to a genteel table aesthetic that prized pale, delicate fricassees and blanquettes; the salt pork added to the pot, by contrast, is straightforward Southern kitchen economy, seasoning the meat and the broth at once. Broiling slowly with the bone side down remains sound practice, and the giblet stock is put to work for the gravy.