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Baked Chicken with Parsnips
Wash, scrape, and quarter parsnips, and parboil for twenty minutes; prepare a young chicken by splitting open at back, place in a dripping-pan, skin side up, lay parsnips around the chicken, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and add a lump of butter the size of an egg, or two or three slices of good pickled pork; put enough water in pan to prevent burning, place in oven and bake until chicken and parsnips are done to a delicate brown; serve chicken separately on a platter, pouring the gravy in the pan over the parsnips.
A plain roasting-pan supper that needs only a few translations to work in a modern oven.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe specifies none; it says only "place in oven and bake." Start at 400F for 20 minutes to set the skin, then drop to 350F for the remainder.
- "A young chicken"A spring bird of about 2 to 3 lb, which is today's broiler or small fryer. Split down the backbone and press flat (spatchcocked) so it lies skin-up in a single layer.
- Doneness, not colourThe original stops at "a delicate brown." Use a thermometer instead: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone. A 3 lb flattened bird takes about 45 to 55 minutes.
- Dripping-panAny heavy rimmed roasting pan or large ovenproof skillet. Crowding is the enemy here; the parsnips need room or they steam rather than brown.
- Butter the size of an eggAbout 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons.
- Pickled porkSalt-cured belly or shoulder, closest today to thick-cut unsmoked streaky bacon or salt pork. Rinse it first if very salty, and cut back the added salt accordingly.
- Parboiling the parsnipsTwenty minutes is generous for modern parsnips. Eight to ten minutes in salted water is enough to leave them firm before they finish in the pan.
- The water in the panAdd only a shallow film, a quarter inch at most, and top it up if it dries. Too much and the parsnips poach and the skin never crisps.
- YieldServes three to four. The pan juices are thin by design; skim the fat and pour them over the parsnips as directed rather than thickening them.
The Dixie Cook Book belongs to the family of late-nineteenth-century American compilations built from contributed household receipts, and this is a characteristic entry: one pan, one bird, a root vegetable, and either butter or salt pork depending on what the pantry held. Parsnips were a common winter root in American kitchens before the twentieth century pushed them to the margins in favour of carrots and potatoes; they overwinter in the ground and grow sweeter after frost, which made them a reliable late-season vegetable. The instruction to offer a choice between butter and "two or three slices of good pickled pork" is the period's economy showing through. Splitting a young chicken open at the back to lay it flat is a technique now generally called spatchcocking, long used for both grilling and pan-roasting because it cooks a small bird quickly and evenly.