Cold Chicken with Vinegar

A frugal way to revive leftover roast or boiled fowl: the bird is chopped small, the bones cracked to release their gelatin, and everything stewed close-covered with a splash of vinegar until the meat is tender again. The hinge is the vinegar, which is there to sharpen and tenderize, not to dominate.

• Start from cooked chickenCold or raw? -- The title may mean the dish is made from cold, already-cooked fowl, or simply that it is served cold; the recipe itself does not say. If you begin with raw chicken it will need considerably longer than a warming-through and will want plenty of liquid.
• Cracking the bonesSplitting the bones with the back of a heavy knife or a cleaver lets marrow and gelatin into the broth, which is what gives this dish body. Pick the fragments out before serving, or portion carefully; cracked poultry bones are sharp.
• A teacup of celeryA teacup of the period is usually reckoned somewhere between 4 and 6 fl oz, so a heaping teacup chopped is roughly a cup, or three good stalks. The recipe says to add it "before cooking," so it goes in at the start and softens right down.
• One tablespoon of vinegarCider vinegar suits the dish better than distilled white. With only a tablespoon against a cup or more of water, the finished sauce should read as faintly tart rather than sour.
• "A deep baking plate"Any deep, heavy pan with a tight cover; a small Dutch oven does the job. The plate laid over the top was a lid substitute, and a real lid works better.
• Stove or embersKeep it at a bare simmer, not a boil. The recipe gives no time; if the meat is already cooked, twenty to thirty minutes will soften it and reduce the liquid to a scant sauce, while raw pieces will want longer.
• SeasoningSalt and pepper are the whole of it, so season the water rather than only the meat, and taste again at the end after the liquid has reduced and concentrated.
• YieldOne chicken treated this way serves three or four over rice, toast, or boiled potatoes to take up the broth.