Fried Chicken
Singe, wash and clean chicken; cut into pieces as follows: two second joints, two drumsticks, two wings, breast cut into two pieces, backbone cut into four pieces. Wipe with piece of cheesecloth; sprinkle with salt and pepper; dredge in flour. Put into frying pan with 2 tablespoons bacon drippings or half drippings and half butter and brown quickly. Add a little water, cover, reduce heat and fry slowly on both sides. Remove chicken; mix 1 tablespoon flour with whatever gravy or fat is in pan; add 1 cup cold milk; boil a few minutes or until thick. This gravy should be rich cream color.
This is skillet fried chicken of the braising school rather than the deep-fried kind: brown fast, add a splash of water, cover, and let it finish gently in its own steam. The instructions assume a cook who already knows what a browned bird looks like, so the useful additions are numbers and a few points where modern practice differs.
- SingeingA holdover from birds sold with pinfeathers still in place. Supermarket chicken needs none of it; a quick check for feather stubs and a dry wipe with paper towel replaces both the singeing and the cheesecloth.
- The cutTwelve pieces from one bird, including four pieces of backbone, suggests a small frying chicken, perhaps 2.5 to 3 lb. Modern birds run 4 lb and up, so expect thicker pieces and longer cooking, or buy the smallest bird available. The back pieces are for flavour and gnawing, not for guests.
- Fat quantityTwo tablespoons is a shallow film in any ordinary frying pan, not a fry. It is enough to brown if the pan is properly hot and not crowded; work in two batches rather than adding more fat, which would only steam the pieces later.
- The hingeThe little water plus the lid is what makes this dish work. It drops the pan temperature and turns the second stage into a braise, so the meat cooks through without the crust burning. Add only a few tablespoons, and keep the heat low enough that you hear a steady murmur, not a hiss.
- DonenessNo time is given. Figure 25 to 35 minutes covered after browning, turning once, and check that thighs reach 175F and breast 165F on an instant-read thermometer. If you want the coating crisp again, uncover for the last five minutes.
- The gravyOne tablespoon flour to one cup milk gives a thin pouring gravy; use two tablespoons if you want it to coat. Loosen the browned bits with the flour before the milk goes in, and cook the roux a minute so the gravy tastes of toasted flour rather than paste. The recipe's "rich cream color" describes the target appearance of the finished gravy.
- Cold milkThe instruction is deliberate. Cold liquid whisked into hot roux disperses before it can set, which is the simplest insurance against lumps. Salt the gravy at the end; the pan drippings are already seasoned.
- YieldOne small bird, four servings, with about a cup of gravy. Biscuits, mashed potato or boiled rice are the period-appropriate places for the gravy to go.
The recipe itself is the standard American skillet method of the era: brown in bacon fat, cover, finish slowly, then build a milk gravy from what is left in the pan. That milk gravy, rather than the frying, is what separates the dish from European fried poultry, and it is generally traced to Southern and Appalachian kitchens where wheat flour and fresh milk were both to hand. The careful instruction to cut the backbone into four pieces is a reminder that a chicken was an expensive animal to kill and nothing on it was thrown out.