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Stewed Chicken
Draw the chicken and divide it into pieces as follows: Cut through the loose skin between the leg and the body, bend the leg over and cut off at the joint; then cut through the flesh and separate the upper and lower parts of the leg at the joint. Do the same with the other leg; then cut off the wings. Make an incision in the skin near the vent and cut the membrane lying between the breastbone and the tail, down to the backbone, on each side. Cut the ribs through the cartilage, separate the collar-bone and break the backbone just below the ribs. Separate the side bones from the back, and remove the bone from the breast. Never chop the bones, but divide them smoothly at the joints. Season the pieces with pepper and salt and cover with boiling water. Cover and stew gently until tender. Remove the chicken. Place the pieces in a colander on a plate in the oven to drain, and thicken the gravy by adding 2 tablespoons of flour rubbed with a tablespoon of butter. Add seasoning to taste, a little chopped parsley and milk to whiten. Beat an egg until light; pour on it part of the gravy, beating carefully to prevent lumps; return to the remainder of the gravy; bring to a boil and pour over the chicken.
A plain fricassee: chicken simmered in water, the broth turned into a velvet-style sauce with flour, butter and egg. The whole dish stands or falls on the last thirty seconds.
- The hinge: the eggThe instruction to "bring to a boil" after the egg goes in is the one line to ignore. Once the beaten egg is tempered into the gravy, hold the sauce below a simmer, around 170-180F, stirring until it coats the spoon. Boiling it will scramble the egg into grains no whisking will smooth out.
- "Draw the chicken"Remove the entrails. A supermarket bird comes drawn, so start at the jointing. Buy a 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 lb whole chicken rather than a cut-up pack if you want the back and breastbone for the broth, which is where the body of the gravy comes from.
- Divide at the jointsThe insistence on never chopping bones is practical, not fussy: splintered bone ends up in the gravy and in the mouth. Feel for the joint, cut the surrounding tissue, and the leg or wing separates with little force.
- Stewing time"Gently until tender" is 45 minutes to an hour for a young bird, longer for an old hen or stewing fowl. Keep the liquid at a bare shiver; a rolling boil makes breast meat stringy and clouds the broth. Barely cover the pieces rather than drowning them, or the gravy will be thin.
- Draining in the ovenThe colander over a plate in the oven simply keeps the chicken hot and dry while you finish the sauce. A 200F oven does the job; loosely cover so the meat does not dry out.
- The thickeningTwo tablespoons flour rubbed with one of butter is a beurre manié, whisked into the hot broth in small lumps. That quantity suits roughly 2 cups of liquid; reduce or boil down first if you have more.
- "Milk to whiten"A few tablespoons, added for colour rather than richness. Cream works and tastes better, but add it before the egg, not after.
- YieldOne chicken this size serves four, with rice, mashed potato or boiled dumplings to take the gravy.
Stewed chicken of this kind is what older American and English books call a white fricassee: the bird jointed, simmered in water rather than browned, and the cooking liquid finished with flour, butter and an egg liaison so that nothing of the bird is wasted. The detailed jointing instructions tell you what sort of reader Mrs. Fryer had in mind: one buying birds whole or freshly killed, rather than trays of parts, and one for whom knowing where the collar-bone and side bones lie was an ordinary domestic skill. The egg-and-broth thickening is an old technique, long attested in European cookery and still standard in French kitchens as a liaison; it gives a sauce that is pale and glossy without cream. Loose-leaf cookbooks like this one were sold in binders so that housekeepers could add pages and their own clippings, and the entries read as self-contained lessons rather than parts of a menu.