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Virginia Stewed Chicken
From I or 2 roast chickens left from a previous meal, cut and dice the best portions so as to have fully 1 pint of meat. Take bones, etc., put in a kettle, cover with cold water, heat and simmer slowly for two hours, then strain. To this stock add the diced meat, 3 large, firm tomatoes peeled and cut fine, I green sweet pepper seeded and chopped, and the corn cut from 1 dozen ears.
Reheat, thicken with 2 scant tablespoonfuls of flour dissolved in cold water, season to taste and simmer for fifteen minutes. Serve garnished with squares of fried hominy.
A leftover-roast-chicken stew from the thrift tradition, close kin to Brunswick stew. The measurements are given by volume in the old style, and one of them is much larger than it looks.
- A pint of meatVolume, not weight: about 2 cups of diced chicken, roughly 10 to 12 oz off the bone. That is likely most of the good meat from one bird, or the remnants of two.
- How much stockThe original never says. Cover the bones by an inch or two, simmer two hours uncovered, and aim to strain out about 1 quart. Less than that and the stew becomes a thick hash; much more and the two tablespoons of flour will not touch it.
- A dozen ears is a lot of cornTwelve modern ears yield somewhere between 6 and 9 cups of kernels, which will overwhelm a quart of stock. Four to six ears (about 3 cups) balances the meat and liquid; use the full dozen only if you scale the stock up to match.
- Corn timingOlder sweet corn varieties were less sugary than today's supersweet hybrids. Modern kernels are tender in 4 or 5 minutes, so add them near the end of the fifteen-minute simmer rather than at the start, or they turn flabby and lose their sweetness.
- Peeling the tomatoesScore the skins, drop them in boiling water for 30 seconds, then into cold water and the skins slip off. Three large tomatoes is about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb; in winter a can of whole tomatoes, drained and chopped, is a rough substitute.
- ThickeningTwo scant tablespoons of flour slaked in cold water gives a light body, not a gravy. Stir it into the simmering stew in a thin stream and let it cook the full fifteen minutes so the raw flour taste goes.
- Seasoning"Season to taste" means salt and black pepper, and this dish needs a firm hand with both since the stock is unsalted and the meat is already cooked out. A dash of cayenne or a spoonful of the roasting pan drippings is in keeping.
- Fried hominy squaresMost likely cooked hominy grits rather than whole or canned hominy, poured into a shallow pan, chilled until firm, cut into squares and fried in butter or bacon fat until crisp. Made a day ahead they cut much more cleanly.
- YieldServes 4 to 6 as a main course with the hominy, more as a first course.
This is Brunswick stew in a domestic, small-batch form: chicken, corn, tomato and sweet pepper thickened lightly and served over or beside fried hominy. Brunswick stew is generally traced to Brunswick County, Virginia, in the early nineteenth century, where it was cooked outdoors in large kettles for gatherings and originally made with squirrel or other small game rather than chicken. What identifies this version as a cookery-book adaptation is the frugality: it begins not with a bird but with the carcass of one or two already eaten, turning bones into stock and picked-over meat into a second full meal. The fried hominy garnish is a Southern habit of the same stripe, made from leftover cooked grits set firm and crisped in fat.