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Roasted Prairie Chicken
Having cleaned and singed the bird, squeeze the juice of a lemon over the stomach and legs and rub it in thoroughly; lay some thin slices of bacon on the breast, fastening them in position with twine, then wrap the bird in a sheet of well buttered paper, lay it on a roastingpan, and roast it in a hot oven, basting continually. It should cook in twenty minutes or half an hour, according to its age. About five minutes before taking it out remove the paper, but allowing the slices of bacon to remain on it; place the bird on a hot dish, mix in the juice of half a lemon with the gravy in the drippingpan, season with a little salt and pepper, and strain through a fine hair-sieve over the bird, garnishing with watercress, and serve.
A plain barded roast of a lean game bird, written for a kitchen with a coal range and a steady supply of wild fowl. Two things need translating: the bird itself and the paper wrapping.
- The birdPrairie chicken (greater prairie chicken, Tympanuchus cupido) is no longer a market bird. It cannot be sold commercially in the United States, is protected across most of its former range, and the Attwater's subspecies is federally endangered; only a few states allow a limited hunting season. Unless a hunter brings you one, cook a pheasant, a partridge or two Cornish hens instead.
- Hot ovenRead this as 425-450F. The short roast depends on it: the bird is small and very lean, and a moderate oven will dry it out long before the skin colours.
- Buttered paperA sheet of buttered kitchen paper is the period's parchment. Buttered parchment does the same job, or use a loose foil tent, removing it for the last five minutes as directed so the bacon and skin can brown.
- Barding, not lardingThe bacon is structural, not seasoning. Prairie chicken and its substitutes carry almost no fat, and the slices baste the breast as they render. Use thin, mild bacon; thick smoked rashers will overwhelm the meat.
- Timing and donenessTwenty to thirty minutes suits a bird of about 2 lb. Go by an instant-read thermometer in the thickest part of the breast rather than the clock. Food-safety guidance for poultry and wild game birds is 165F; many cooks of game pull the breast lower, around 155-160F, and rest it, accepting the trade-off, and past 170F the breast turns dry.
- Hair-sieveA fine horsehair sieve. It is often said that hair was preferred because metal could taint delicate or acidic sauces; hair sieves also simply predate cheap fine wire mesh. Any fine mesh strainer works. The "gravy" here is only pan drippings sharpened with lemon, so strain it and pour it over at once.
- YieldOne bird serves two, or one as a full portion. Watercress is the traditional garnish for roast game and is meant to be eaten, dressed with a little of the pan juice.
Prairie chicken was a fixture of American hotel menus in the second half of the nineteenth century, shipped east by the barrel from the grasslands of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and the Dakotas during the years when market hunting for wild game was legal and enormous. Diners of the period expected canvasback duck, terrapin, venison and prairie fowl in season, and this recipe's brevity reflects how routine the bird then was. The trade did not last: the Lacey Act of 1900 restricted interstate traffic in illegally taken game, and the prairie chicken's grassland habitat was ploughed under. The heath hen of the Atlantic coast, an eastern form of the same species, once sold in the same markets, died out entirely in 1932. A recipe like this one is a small record of what a kitchen could simply order in.