Chicken Broth
Cut up a chicken into small pieces and put it in a deep earthen dish, adding a quart of cold water, and setting it quart of cold water, and setting it over a boiling kettle. Cover closely and 'et it steam several hours until the meat of the chicken has become tender, after which strain off the broth and let it stand over night. Skim off the fat in the morning and pour the broth into a bowl.
Into the dish in which the broth was made put one-third of a teacupful rice in a teacupful of cold water, and steam as before until the rice is soft; then pour in the broth and steam an hour or two longer.
An invalid-cookery broth built on gentle steam rather than a simmer, which is what keeps it clear and pale. The method translates directly to a heatproof bowl set over a pan of boiling water.
- The hinge: steam, never boilThe chicken sits in a covered dish over a kettle of boiling water, so the contents sit at or just below the temperature of boiling water and the liquid never agitates. That is the whole point — no scum is churned back in, and the broth stays clear and delicately flavoured. Use a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, covered, topping up the water as it evaporates over the several hours called for.
- Typesetting slip"adding a quart of cold water, and setting it quart of cold water, and setting it over a boiling kettle" is a repeated line from the compositor. One quart of cold water total.
- TeacupfulIn American books of this period a teacup is generally reckoned at about three-quarters of a cup, so one-third of a teacupful is roughly 1/4 cup of raw rice, cooked in 3/4 cup water. The measure is genuinely loose; the rice should end up soft enough to thicken the broth without turning it to porridge.
- Do not leave it out overnightStanding the broth overnight was how a cook without refrigeration set the fat into a solid cap for easy skimming. Cooked poultry broth held at room temperature for hours is a straightforward risk from Clostridium perfringens and Bacillus cereus. Chill it uncovered until cool, then refrigerate; the fat lifts off just as cleanly in the morning.
- Choice of birdAn old stewing hen or fowl gives far more gelatin and flavour under this long slow steam than a modern broiler. If only a supermarket chicken is available, include the back, wings and any bones, and count on a lighter result.
- SeasoningThe recipe gives none. Invalid cookery of the period often kept broths very plain. Salt to taste at the end, and consider a blade of celery or a slice of onion in the dish if it is being served to someone well.
- Time and yieldThe recipe says several hours of steaming for the chicken, then long enough for the rice to soften, then an hour or two more after the broth goes back in. The finished quantity is small — a couple of servings.
This is invalid cookery, a category that ran through many American household manuals of the late nineteenth century and often occupied its own chapter. Chicken broth thickened with rice was the standard convalescent food: easy to swallow, gently nourishing by the nutritional thinking of the day, and free of the "stimulating" qualities then attributed to red meat and spices. The steaming method " an earthen dish set over a boiling kettle rather than on the fire " belongs to the same tradition of double-boiler and bain-marie cookery used for custards and beef tea, and it survived in print long after gas ranges made close temperature control easier. Nursing the household through illness was understood to be part of the domestic skill being taught, and a broth that could be made without instruction was expected of any competent housekeeper.