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To Boil Chicken, Lamb and Other Fresh Meat
Cover the meat with boiling water, let boil rapidly five minutes, then keep the water just below the boiling-point, or just "quivering" at one side of the saucepan, until the meat is tender.
When the meat is about half cooked, add a teaspoonful of salt for each quart of water.
This is a method rather than a dish: a base technique for cooking meat that will later be sliced or minced for sandwich fillings. The whole point is in the second sentence.
- The hinge: never let it boilAfter the initial five minutes, hold the water at a bare quiver — roughly 180-190F, with only occasional bubbles rising at one edge of the pan. A real boil tightens and shreds the muscle fibres and squeezes out moisture, which is exactly what you do not want in meat destined to be sliced thin.
- Why the water goes on hotStarting with boiling water and dropping to a simmer draws less of the meat's soluble juices out into the pot, though the old idea that hot water 'seals' the surface does not hold up. If you want a rich broth instead, start the meat in cold water; you cannot have both at their best from one pot.
- Salt added halfwayA teaspoon per quart is a light hand by modern standards — closer to a broth seasoning than a brine. Salting from the start does no harm and seasons more evenly; the instruction to wait may reflect a belief, common in period kitchens, that early salt toughened meat.
- TimingsA 4-5 lb whole chicken takes about 60-75 minutes at a quiver; boneless breast 15-20 minutes. A boned shoulder of lamb wants 1.5 to 2 hours. Test with a thermometer rather than the clock: 165F at the thigh joint for poultry, 145F and rested for lamb.
- Cool it in its own liquidNot stated here, but essential for sandwich meat. Take the pan off the heat and let the meat cool in the broth before slicing, otherwise it dries as it stands and crumbles under the knife.
- Keep the brothYou are left with a light stock. Strain it, chill it, lift the fat, and use it to moisten the chopped filling.
- SlicingChill the cooked meat thoroughly, several hours or overnight, before slicing for sandwiches. Warm poached meat will not cut thin.
Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties came out of the Boston Cooking School circle at the turn of the twentieth century, when the sandwich was moving from a picnic afterthought to a subject worth a chapter of its own. That is why a general instruction for boiling meat sits inside a sandwich section: many of the fillings begin with cold cooked chicken, lamb or tongue, chopped or shaved, and the compiler needed one place to explain how to produce it well. The advice to hold the water "just quivering" describes the look of the surface rather than naming a technique, and it reflects a kitchen where heat came from a coal range with no dial he the the surface of the water.