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Broiled Chicken
Clean wipe, and split down the back, a young chicken. Sprinkle with salt and pepper; place on greased broiler, and cook over dripping pan in hot oven over twenty minutes. Remove from oven, and broil over clear fire until golden brown. Remove from broiler, spread with melted butter, sprinkle with chopped parsley, and serve on hot platter on bed of water cress.
Sautéd Chicken Cut chicken in pieces for serving. Dip in water, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dredge with flour. Try out two tablespoons salt pork cubes. Cover bottom of frying pan with pieces of chicken. Cook until a delicate brown on one side, then turn and brown on the other. Drain on brown paper.
Take three tablespoons of fat from the pan, brown, add three tablespoons flour and brown, add one fourth teaspoon each of salt, nutmeg, and paprika, and a cup and a quarter of cream. Cook five minutes, pour around chicken, and garnish with parsley and toast points.
Two recipes run together here: a spatchcocked broiled chicken, then a sautéed chicken with a cream gravy. Both assume a coal range with an oven and an open grate, so the equipment needs translating more than the technique does.
- "Broiler" means the rack, not the applianceIn 1907 a broiler was a hinged wire grid that held the split bird flat. A wire rack set inside a shallow roasting pan does the same job, and the "dripping pan" beneath it catches the fat.
- Hot ovenThe book gives no numbers; period usage puts a "hot oven" somewhere around 400-450F. Note the recipe says "over twenty minutes", i.e. at least twenty; that stage starts the bird rather than finishing it.
- "Broil over clear fire"A clear fire is coals with no flame or smoke. Your oven's broiler element, or a grill burned down to steady coals, gives the same finish in 4 to 6 minutes a side.
- A young chickenBirds sold as broilers in this period generally ran small, on the order of 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 lb dressed, though the trade was not standardised. A modern 3 lb bird split down the back and pressed flat works, but allow extra time at the oven stage.
- DonenessThe original relies on colour alone. Take the thickest part of the thigh to 165F; a split bird cooks fast and unevenly, and the breast will be dry well before the thigh is safe if the heat is too high.
- "Try out" salt porkRender the diced pork slowly until the fat runs and the cubes are crisp, then use that fat to fry the chicken. Two tablespoons of cubes yields little fat; supplement with butter or oil if the pan looks dry.
- The sauce is the hingeBrown the reserved fat, then the flour, before any liquid goes in. A pale roux here gives a raw, floury cream gravy; take it to the colour of a hazelnut. Cream will thicken further off the heat, so pull it while it still pours.
- Drain on brown paperPaper towels on a rack. Keep the chicken uncovered so the crust does not steam soft while the sauce comes together.
- YieldNo yield is stated; the split broiler will feed two to three, the sautéed chicken rather more. Watercress under a hot bird will wilt on contact.
Lowney's Cook Book (1907) was compiled by Maria Willett Howard for the Walter M. Lowney Company of Boston, a chocolate manufacturer; alongside its confectionery chapters it carries a full general household repertoire — hence a meats section with no cocoa in sight. Both dishes here belong to the age of the market chicken sold by type: "broilers" were young birds sold specifically for splitting and grilling, "fryers" a little larger, "roasters" larger still, a trade vocabulary that survives on American poultry labels today. The two-stage method — oven first, then the open fire for colour — suited the coal range, where the firebox gave fierce direct heat but the oven gave steadier all-round cooking. The sautéed version, with its salt pork fat, browned flour and cream finished with nutmeg and paprika, sits in the New England style associated with Fannie Farmer and the Boston Cooking School, which was widely influential in American cookbooks by 1900.