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Chicken En Casserole No. 1
I good sized chicken 1 lb. sliced bacon I onion 3 tomatoes 3 celery stalks 5 mushrooms 2 pickled walnuts I bay leaf 1 pint (2 cups) stock 1 tablespoonful arrowroot Salt and pepper Singe and draw the chicken, then truss it as for boiling, have ready a casserole large enough to hold the bird whole; line it with the bacon, put in the chicken, sprinkle in salt, pepper, and the onion chopped fine. Then arrange round the chicken the tomatoes skinned, the celery, mushrooms and walnuts chopped, and the bay leaf; add the stock, place the casserole in the oven, let it cook gently for one and a half hours, basting the chicken frequently.
When ready, remove the bay leaf, brown and thicken the gravy with the arrowroot, leave all the vegetables in the gravy with the chicken, and serve hot in the casserole.
A turkey may also be prepared in this way.
An Edwardian pot-roast in an earthenware casserole, straightforward once a few of its assumptions are translated. The main thing the original leaves out is a doneness test.
- Cook to temperature, not to the clockAn hour and a half suits a bird of about 3 lb; a 4-5 lb chicken will need longer. Check the thickest part of the thigh reads 165F and that the juices run clear before serving.
- "A gentle oven""Let it cook gently" -- the recipe gives no oven setting; a moderate oven, in the region of 325F, will suit. The dish should barely bubble at the edges; a hard boil in the stock will leave the breast dry and stringy well before the legs are done.
- Singe and drawBoth steps are obsolete. A supermarket chicken arrives plucked, singed and drawn; simply remove the giblet packet, pat dry and truss the legs and wings close to the body so the bird sits compactly in the pot.
- The casseroleHere the word means the cooking pot itself, not a baked dish: it goes in the oven and comes to table. Use one just large enough to take the bird whole. The recipe does not say whether it is covered, though frequent basting is easier if the lid is lifted rather than left off.
- Basting a covered potBasting -- the recipe asks for frequent basting; every 20-25 minutes is enough in practice. If the pot is covered and you want colour on the breast, leave the lid off for the last stretch.
- Pickled walnutsStill sold in British grocers and online, jarred in a dark spiced vinegar. They give a sharp, malty note that is hard to substitute; a tablespoon of capers plus a splash of the walnut or malt vinegar is the nearest approximation.
- ArrowrootAbout a tablespoon, slaked in a little cold water and stirred into the hot liquid off the heat. It thickens to a clear gloss and turns thin again if boiled hard or held long, so finish the sauce just before serving. Cornflour behaves similarly but sets cloudy.
- Bacon and saltA pound of sliced bacon lining the pot, plus a pint of stock, is a good deal of salt. Use unsmoked streaky if you can, and season the bird lightly, correcting the gravy at the end.
- YieldServes four with the vegetables, or six if you add potatoes to the pot for the last 40 minutes.
Casserole cookery is often said to have had a vogue in Britain and America in the years before the First World War, a period in which fireproof earthenware and enamelled iron are generally thought to have come within reach of more ordinary households and some books were given over to the single pot. The appeal was economy and self-sufficiency: a tough or elderly fowl, a modest amount of stock, and a slow oven produced a dish that came to table in the vessel it cooked in, saving both fuel and washing-up. The pickled walnuts here mark the recipe as English in temper. Walnuts picked green in midsummer, before the shell hardens, and pickled in spiced vinegar appear in English recipe books from the seventeenth century onward, used much as anchovy or mushroom ketchup was, to give a savoury depth to gravies. The recipe notes that a turkey may be done the same way.