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Smothered Chicken
2 small chickens or I large one 2 or more tablespoons butter Salt and pepper or other fat
Flour
This is one of the most delicious ways of cooking chicken. Take off the neck and split the chicken down the back, wiping it with a damp towel. Season inside and out with salt and pepper, and dredge on all sides with flour. Lay the chicken, with the inside down, in a small baking-tin, and add a very little water. The pan should be very little larger than the chickens, otherwise the gravy will be too quickly evaporated. Cook slowly for one hour, basting every ten minutes after the first twenty minutes, or cook in a covered baking-pan.
Should the chicken be decidedly lacking in fat, add butter or other fat. There will be plenty of gravy in the pan with which to baste if the pan is small. When done, place the chicken on a hot platter, add enough water to make two cups gravy and thicken with two tablespoons flour. Should the chicken be quite fat, remove all but two tablespoons of the oil from the pan before making the gravy. Season with salt and pepper, pour it over the chicken and serve at once.
Any small birds may be dressed in this way with the most satisfactory results. The secret of success in this kind of roasting lies in very frequent basting and in not having too hot an oven.
A split bird roasted low and slow in a tight pan, basted into its own gravy. The method still works; only the temperature and doneness test need stating in modern terms.
- Oven temperature"Cook slowly" and "not too hot an oven" point to a moderate-to-slow oven, roughly 300-325F; the book itself gives no figure. Any hotter and the small amount of water in the pan boils away before the bird is done, which is exactly the failure the last line warns against.
- The pan is the whole techniqueUse a tin barely larger than the bird. In a big roasting pan the juices spread thin, scorch, and there is nothing to baste with. A heavy 9x13 or a small oval roaster suits one 3-4 lb bird split flat.
- Doneness, not the clockOne hour is right for two small birds of about 2 to 2 1/2 lb each; a single 4 lb chicken will want closer to 1 1/2 hours. Cook to 165F at the thickest part of the thigh rather than trusting the time.
- "Small chickens"The book gives no weights; in this period "small chickens" likely means broilers of roughly 2 to 2 1/2 lb, smaller than most supermarket birds today. Two modern 3 1/2 lb chickens will not fit the small-pan rule; use one bird and a snug tin.
- Basting or covering, not bothThe recipe offers a choice. Uncovered with basting every ten minutes gives browner skin; a covered pan steams the bird and needs no attention but leaves the skin pale. Covered, then uncovered for the last twenty minutes, splits the difference.
- Skin side down firstBreast up -- "Inside down" means the cut cavity faces the pan, so the bird lies breast up. It is the breast that dries, and the frequent basting is aimed at it.
- The gravyTwo tablespoons flour to two cups liquid is a thin gravy by modern taste. Whisk the flour into a little cold water first, or cook it into the reserved fat as a roux, then add the pan liquid; flour stirred straight into hot juices will lump.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; one large chicken or two small ones will serve about four.
"Smothered" in American cookery of this period meant cooked close-covered in a small vessel with very little liquid, so the food stewed in its own steam and fat rather than roasting dry -- the same sense as smothered onions or smothered rabbit. The Butterick book was published for the readers of a pattern-and-fashion house, and its closing line insists on a slow oven and frequent basting rather than giving a temperature. The dish shares a name with the Southern skillet version, chicken browned and finished under a lid in its own gravy; the oven treatment here has the bird split flat down the back. The note that "any small birds may be dressed in this way" points to a time when quail and other small wild birds were still ordinary household fare.