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Chicken Loaf
3 C chicken stock ⅛ t salt ½ t pepper Soften gelatine in the cold water. Add the hot chicken stock and seasonings. Strain and when cold add the meat and chopped mushrooms. Celery may be added instead of mushrooms.
A jellied chicken loaf of the kind that carried church-supper luncheons before refrigeration was universal — cold poultry set in seasoned stock, sliced and served on lettuce. The method is sound; the quantities need reconstructing.
- The gelatine is the hingeNo quantity is given for gelatine or its soaking water. For a loaf firm enough to slice, a serviceable reconstruction is one envelope of powdered gelatine (¼ oz, about 2¼ teaspoons) per cup of liquid — so roughly three envelopes for 3 cups of stock, bloomed in about ¾ cup cold water, which itself adds to the total liquid. Much less than that tends to give a spoonable jelly rather than a loaf.
- Seasoning figuresThe salt quantity as printed (12 t) cannot be taken at face value, and the printed 1½ t pepper is also very heavy for 3 cups of stock. Something on the order of 1½ teaspoons salt and about ¼ teaspoon pepper suits 3 cups, adjusted to how the stock was already seasoned. Cold jellies taste flat, so season the hot liquid a shade more assertively than seems right.
- Chicken quantityNo amount of meat is stated. About 2 to 3 cups of cooked chicken, diced or coarsely shredded, fills 3 cups of stock without crowding out the jelly. Dark and light meat together slices better than breast alone.
- "When cold"This means cooled to the point where the mixture has begun to thicken and hold a trail from the spoon, not fully set. Adding meat earlier lets it sink to one end of the mould; adding it later leaves you stirring lumps into a set jelly.
- MushroomsThe recipe says only 'chopped mushrooms' and does not say whether they are cooked; canned or bottled ones, already cooked, would suit the method. Fresh mushrooms should be sautéed and drained first — raw ones weep liquid into the jelly and soften the set.
- Mould and settingA standard 9x5 loaf tin holds this comfortably. Rinse it with cold water or brush it lightly with oil before filling, and chill at least 6 hours or overnight; unmould by dipping the tin briefly in warm water.
- Yield and servingServes six to eight as a luncheon dish, cut in thick slices onto lettuce with mayonnaise or a mustard dressing. Being an uncooked set jelly with cooked meat in it, it should be kept refrigerated and eaten within two or three days.
Jellied meat loaves like this one belong to the long American vogue for moulded dishes that ran from the 1890s through the middle of the twentieth century, driven by the arrival of cheap granulated gelatine in packets — a product that turned what had been a laborious calf's-foot or isinglass job into something any cook could do between other tasks. Such loaves would have had obvious practical appeal: a loaf could be made the night before, travelled well, sliced neatly for a crowd, and stretched leftover roast fowl a long way. The permission to substitute celery for mushrooms is common enough in recipes of the period, and may well reflect an expectation that cooks would adapt to whatever the pantry held.