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Broiled Chicken Legs
Take the legs of some cold chickens, remove the skin, cut the flesh on both sides of the bone and spread over them a preparation made of half a teaspoonful each of salt and pepper, a little cayenne, half an ounce of warmed butter and one saltspoonful of essence of anchovies, all well mixed. When this is rubbed into the meat, especially into the cuts, place them over a rather slow fire on a gridiron, and broil them for about ten minutes, turning them occasionally. They are then ready for serving. A little cooked bacon should be served with them.
This is a way of using up cooked chicken legs left from a roast, not a method for raw poultry. The meat is already done; the fire is only there to crisp the outside and set the seasoning paste.
- Start with cooked legs"The legs of some cold chickens" means roasted or boiled legs, chilled. Raw legs will not cook through in ten minutes over a slow fire, and the paste will scorch long before the joint is safe.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Half an ounce of butter is one tablespoon.
- Essence of anchoviesA thin bottled anchovy sauce, common in Victorian larders. Anchovy paste thinned with a little water is the closest substitute, about a scant quarter teaspoon; Worcestershire sauce works but brings tamarind and vinegar with it.
- Scoring the meatCutting the flesh on both sides of the bone gives the seasoning somewhere to sit and lets heat reach the middle of a cold joint. Rub the paste into the cuts, as the recipe directs, not just over the surface.
- "A rather slow fire"Medium-low. The recipe means a gridiron over coals; the nearest modern equivalent is a gas broiler on a lower setting with the pan several inches from the element, or a grill you can hold a hand over for four or five seconds. The paste contains butter and cayenne, both of which burn quickly.
- Ten minutes, turningReasonable for reheating chilled cooked legs. Judge by the surface rather than the clock — you want the cut edges browned, not the meat dried out.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield or number of servings. It calls only for a little cooked bacon to be served alongside; the quantity of paste given is enough for several legs.
This is a devilled dish in the Victorian sense: cold roast meat scored, coated in a hot paste of cayenne or anchovy, and rebroiled. Devilled bones and devilled legs were standard supper and breakfast fare in nineteenth-century English houses and clubs. Anchovy essence, which does most of the work here, was one of the era's bottled savoury flavourings, sold alongside mushroom ketchup and Harvey's sauce, and it functioned much as Worcestershire does now. Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's ma u00eetre d'h u00f4tel, compiled the book in 1896 from the hotel's working repertoire, which is why a thrifty leftover dish sits in it beside far grander ones.