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Panned Chicken
Split the chicken down the back, and with a pointed knife sever the joints, but do not separate the parts. Slightly flatten the chicken with a rolling-pin, lay bits of butter upon it, and place it in a moderate oven. When it is nearly done remove from the oven, salt and pepper both sides, strew once more with bits of butter, dredge with flour, and return to the oven to brown slightly on both sides, the under side first. When the chicken is thoroughly done, place it on the platter with the skin side uppermost, cover, and set it where it will keep warm. Pour one cup of hot milk into the pan, and add one tablespoon of fine cracker crumbs or grated bread. Season with salt and pepper, if necessary, and add a few drops of onion juice or a teaspoon of chopped parsley or tarragon, as preferred. Stir the gravy vigorously, let it boil one minute, turn it over the chicken, garnish the latter with cress or parsley, and serve.
This is spatchcocked chicken roasted in an open pan, with a milk gravy thickened by crumbs rather than a roux. Nothing here is difficult, but the book assumes a small young bird and a cook who judges doneness by eye.
- Moderate ovenRead this as roughly 350-375F. The final browning stage benefits from raising the heat to around 425F for the last several minutes rather than relying on the flour and butter alone.
- The bird the book meansChickens suited to this treatment were small, broadly in the 2 to 3 lb broiler range rather than a modern 4 to 5 lb roaster. About 3 lb is the largest that will flatten and cook evenly this way; a big supermarket roaster risks scorching outside before the thighs are done.
- Splitting and flatteningCutting down the back and cracking the joints without separating the pieces is what is now called spatchcocking. Press with the heel of your hand or a rolling-pin until the breastbone gives and the bird lies flat, which is the whole point of the method.
- Cook to temperature"Thoroughly done" in this period meant well past what we aim for now. Take the thigh to 175F and the thickest part of the breast to 165F; a flattened 2 1/2 lb bird needs roughly 40 to 50 minutes at 350F plus the browning.
- Salt timingThe recipe seasons only near the end. Salting both sides before it goes in gives better-seasoned meat and skin; keep the second dusting of pepper and the butter-and-flour dredge as written.
- Onion juiceGrate half a peeled onion on a fine rasp and press the pulp in a sieve. A few drops go a long way; the original leaves parsley or tarragon as alternatives, "as preferred."
- The gravy is the hingeCracker or bread crumbs thicken hot milk almost instantly and will turn pasty if overcooked. Add the milk to the hot pan, scrape up the browned flour, stir in the crumbs, boil one minute exactly, and pour it out.
- YieldOne small bird serves two, three at a stretch with a substantial vegetable. Scale to one chicken per two or three people rather than trying to fit two birds in one pan, which steams them.
"Panned" here has nothing to do with the modern casserole dish; it means cooked in an open pan in the oven, a common nineteenth-century treatment for a young bird too tender to need stewing. Splitting and flattening a broiler was ordinary practice in American kitchens long before the word spatchcock came into general use in the United States, and it can be found in cookbooks of the 1880s and 1890s alongside broiled chicken, which uses the same cut over direct heat. The Butterick Publishing Company, better known for dress patterns and The Delineator, issued its cook book for the same audience of middle-class housekeepers, and the finish is an economical one: rather than a separate sauce, the pan is deglazed with milk and bound with cracker crumbs, a thickener that needed no butter beyond what had already gone on the bird.