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Smothered Chicken
Kill the day before it is smothered. Split open the back, as if to broil. When ready to cook, wipe dry with a clean towel, rub well with butter and sprinkle with pepper and salt. Put in a pan with a slice of bacon or pork and a pint of water. Simmer an hour or more, basting frequently. When thoroughly done, place on a hot dish.
Stir into the gravy remaining on the fire a beaten egg, mixing it carefully. Pour this into the dish, but not on the chicken. Sift over it cracker, first browned and then pounded. Garnish with parsley, and serve.--Mrs. S. T.
A spatchcocked bird braised in a covered pan, with an egg-thickened pan gravy served alongside rather than over it. Almost all of it translates directly; the opening line and the egg are the two places to pay attention.
- "Kill the day before"This is instruction for a household with live poultry: the carcass needs a day for rigor to pass, or the meat cooks up tough. A supermarket chicken has long since passed that stage. Start with a 3 to 4 lb bird, split down the backbone and opened flat.
- Smothered means coveredSmothered in period usage generally meant cooking closely covered rather than in a sauce -- though this recipe never specifies a lid, and the instruction to baste frequently means the pan was at least opened at intervals. Cook in a heavy pan, covered between bastings, so the bird part-steams, part-braises; if you cook it open, expect to top up the water.
- A pint of waterTwo cups. With the lid on this is enough for an hour of gentle simmering and will reduce to a modest amount of gravy. Add a splash if the pan threatens to run dry.
- Doneness over timeAn hour or more at a bare simmer will do it, but judge by the thigh joint reading 165F rather than by the clock. A flattened bird cooks faster than a whole one.
- The egg is the hingeTake the pan off the heat, whisk a ladle of hot gravy into the beaten egg, then return the mixture to the pan and stir over low heat until it thickens. If the gravy boils after the egg goes in, it scrambles and cannot be brought back.
- The bacon or porkOne slice of streaky bacon or salt pork, for fat and savour in the gravy. Salt pork of the period was often a good deal saltier than modern bacon, so season the bird lightly and correct the gravy at the end.
- Browned cracker'cracker' here would have meant a plain hard soda or water cracker. Toast in a dry pan or the oven until golden, then crush fine. Panko toasted the same way is the nearest ready substitute. Sprinkle over the gravy only, so it stays crisp.
- YieldNot stated; a bird of this size would feed about four. The gravy is meant to sit around the chicken in the same hot dish rather than be poured over it, which would keep the buttered skin from going soft.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1878, gathered contributions from some 250 Virginia housekeepers, which is why so many entries close with a set of initials rather than a name. Smothering is one of the oldest and most durable techniques in Southern cookery: a bird or a cut of meat browned or buttered, then cooked slowly under a tight lid with a little liquid, so that the steam does the tenderising and the pan juices become the sauce. It suited the hearth and the wood range better than roasting did, since it needed a steady low fire rather than a hot even one. The instruction to kill the chicken the day before is the clearest sign of the book's world: poultry was kept in the yard, and the cook's timetable began well before the kitchen.