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Broiled Chickens
Take a chicken, clean, singe and split it down the back; break the joints, take out the breast-bone and wipe the bird clean; dust a little pepper and salt over it, rub with warm butter, put on a gridiron over a good, clear fire, and broil for twenty minutes or so. Place it on a dish with some more butter over and serve quite hot. To carve this, separate the legs and wings from the body, and then the breast from the lower parts.
This is spatchcocked chicken over live coals, written when a broiling fowl weighed barely two pounds. The technique transfers directly; only the timing needs scrutiny.
- The birdA turn-of-the-century broiler was 1.5 to 2.5 lb, small enough to cook through in twenty minutes. A modern supermarket bird runs 3.5 to 5 lb and will not. Buy the smallest whole chicken you can find, or use two Cornish hens.
- Split it properlyThe recipe means cut through the back to open the bird out; if you prefer, cut down either side of the backbone and remove it, then press the bird flat and take out the breastbone as directed. 'Break the joints' most likely means cracking the leg and wing joints so the bird lies genuinely flat and the thighs sit as close to the heat as the breast.
- Cook to temperature, not to twenty minutesTwenty minutes is right for a two-pound bird over hot coals, split and flattened. Anything larger needs 35 to 45 minutes with the lid down or the heat moved off to one side. Go by 165F in the thickest part of the thigh.
- Bone side firstStart cut-side down for most of the cooking, then finish skin-side to the fire for colour. The rib cage shields the meat and lets the interior come up before the skin burns.
- "A good, clear fire"Coals burned down to grey ash, no flame. Under a gas broiler, use the second rack position rather than the top, since the buttered skin will flare and scorch directly under the element.
- The butterWarm, not melted and not browned, so it clings rather than running into the fire. The second butter at the table is the point of the dish: the juices and butter pool on the platter and become the sauce. Warm the platter first.
- YieldOne small split chicken serves two generously, or one in the manner of the period.
Broiled chicken of this kind was the standard hotel and chophouse order of the late nineteenth century, and split fowl over a gridiron appears in many American cookbooks of the era. It depended on a supply of very young birds: spring chickens of a couple of months, sold whole, and cooked within a day or two, before commercial refrigeration and year-round production made size and season irrelevant. That the recipe ends with carving instructions is a reminder that the dish arrived at the table whole and was divided there, a note that appears in household and hotel cookery alike.