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Fowl Dressed with Mushroom Sauce
494. Put the fowl in a stew-pan with a bit of bacon under and over, and a spoonful or two of good gravy. Cover it closely with a lid, and put it in rather a slow oven, and let it stew gently for an hour and a half, turning it often; pour the gravy from it, take off the fat, and put some pickled mushrooms with some of the vinegar to it, and a little more good gravy if you require it; make it quite hot, and pour it over.
A pot-roast in all but name: the bird cooks in its own steam under a lid, with bacon supplying the fat an older fowl lacks. The hinge is the vessel — a tight seal, or the small amount of gravy will dry away long before ninety minutes are up.
- "Fowl" means an older birdA nineteenth-century fowl was a mature laying hen, tough and full-flavoured, which is why it gets an hour and a half. A 4–5 lb roasting chicken will be done in about an hour to an hour and a quarter; check the thigh joint for 165F and stop there rather than running the clock out.
- "Rather a slow oven"Roughly 300F, give or take; period oven terms convert only loosely. The dish is meant to stew, not roast, so a low steady heat under the lid is the point.
- The stew-panUse a heavy lidded casserole or Dutch oven only just larger than the bird. Excess space means the two spoonfuls of gravy evaporate instead of steaming; a sheet of foil crimped under the lid closes any gap.
- "Good gravy"Not thickened sauce but strong brown stock, the reduced meat broth called for throughout cookery books of the period. Concentrated chicken or veal stock does the job; a spoonful or two is perhaps 2-3 tablespoons to start, with more added at the end.
- The baconStreaky bacon or fatback laid under and over the breast, not smoked back bacon, whose cure will dominate. It is barding, and it comes off before serving.
- Turning oftenWith so little liquid the bird browns where it touches metal. Turn it every twenty minutes or so, and the skin colours evenly without ever crisping.
- Pickled mushroomsA common store-cupboard preserve, small button mushrooms in spiced vinegar, generally sharper and saltier than most of what is sold today as pickled mushrooms in brine. Add them and their vinegar cautiously, tasting as you go, or the sauce turns sour.
- DegreasingPouring off the gravy and lifting the fat matters more here than usual, since the bacon renders into a small volume of liquid. A gravy separator, or five minutes in a cold bowl and a spoon, will do it.
- YieldOne bird, enough for about four, with the sauce poured over as the recipe directs.