Boned Chicken
Boned chicken must be stuffed in shape. With a highly seasoned force meat made of chicken or veal. Sew or tie in shape. Put in pan, cover with thin slices of bacon. Baste often, remove bacon and sprinkle with flour and brown.
Mrs. Wilson assumes you already know how to bone a fowl and how hot a roasting oven should be; neither is stated. The points below fill in what the entry leaves out.
- Boning the birdWork with the chicken breast-down, cut along the backbone, and scrape the meat away from the frame with the knife tip, keeping the skin intact. Wing and leg bones can stay in for shape or come out for a cleaner slice; the carcass goes into stock.
- Forcemeat proportionsThe recipe gives no weights; for a 4 lb bird, about 1 lb of ground chicken or veal is enough. Bind it with an egg and a few tablespoons of cream or soaked breadcrumbs. "Highly seasoned" is not spelled out here; seasonings commonly used for such forcemeats include salt, pepper, mace or nutmeg, thyme and onion. The stuffing is tasted through a thick layer of meat, so season it more assertively than you would a patty.
- Stuffing to shapePack the forcemeat loosely enough to allow for expansion, then sew the skin closed with a trussing needle and cotton twine, or roll the bird in cheesecloth and tie at intervals. Overpacking splits the skin as the stuffing sets.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A stuffed boned fowl of this size does best at 350F for roughly 1 1/2 to 2 hours; the mass of forcemeat means it cooks more slowly than an ordinary roast chicken of the same weight.
- DonenessJudge by a thermometer pushed into the center of the forcemeat, not by the outside color: 165F. Ground chicken or veal at the core is the slowest part to heat and the reason the timing is generous.
- The baconThe bacon slices are barding — fat cover for a bird whose frame has been removed. Lay them over the breast for most of the roasting, then lift them off, dust with flour and return to the oven to brown, as directed.
- BastingBaste every 15 to 20 minutes with the pan fat, adding a little stock if the pan threatens to scorch. Since the flour dredge goes on at the end, do not baste after it or it will turn to paste rather than crust.
- Yield and servingA 4 to 5 lb boned stuffed chicken serves six to eight. It slices far more neatly cold, after a night in the refrigerator under light weight, than it does hot from the pan.