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Chicken En Casserole
1 chicken Butter, salad oil, or other fat 1 pint rich brown stock 12 button mushrooms 12 potato balls 1 carrot, sliced 6 small onions Salt, pepper, paprika Wash the chicken and cut it up. Saute the pieces in a little fat until well browned on all sides. Place in a greased casserole, add brown stock, cover and cook in a slow to moderate oven (350 degrees F.) for an hour. When the chicken has been cooking for an hour, saute the carrot slices, the potato balls, the onions and the mushrooms in a little fat, stirring them lightly around until they are well browned. Put these with the chicken in the casserole, season with salt, pepper and paprika, add more salt if needed, cover and cook for three-fourths of an hour, then remove the cover and allow the chicken to brown before serving.
A straightforward braise, but the timing was written for a bird much tougher than anything sold today. Read the total cooking time before you start.
- The chickenThe recipe says only "1 chicken" and gives no weight. A whole bird of roughly 3 1/2 to 4 lb, cut into eight or ten serving pieces, suits the method. Buy it whole and joint it yourself, or use bone-in thighs and drumsticks, which hold up far better than breast to a long spell in liquid.
- Cut the timeAn hour plus three-quarters plus an uncovered browning totals close to two hours, which suggests a tougher bird than a modern broiler-fryer. Figure 40-45 minutes covered, then 25-30 minutes more with the vegetables, and check that the thigh joint is tender and reads 175F.
- Oven heatThe original hedges between "slow to moderate" and then names 350F. Trust the number. If the liquid is bubbling hard rather than barely trembling, drop to 325F.
- A pint of stockTwo cups. "Rich brown stock" means a real reduced veal or beef stock with body enough to gloss the finished dish; unsalted commercial beef stock, simmered down by a third, is the nearest practical substitute. Season it lightly, since it reduces further in the oven.
- Potato ballsCut from peeled raw potatoes with a large melon baller, or simply use small new potatoes halved. Twelve balls is roughly two medium potatoes' worth.
- Button mushroomsSmall whole white mushrooms, stems trimmed. The recipe already has them sauteed and added with the other vegetables partway through rather than at the start, which is right: added earlier they collapse to nothing.
- The final browningRemoving the cover at the end is what separates this from a plain stew. Give it 10-15 minutes uncovered, and if the skin is still pale, run it under the broiler for two minutes.
- YieldFour servings. The vegetables are built in, so bread and a green salad complete it.