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Jellied Chicken
Cook six chickens in a small quantity of water, until the meat will part from the bone easily; season to taste with salt and pepper; just as soon as cold enough to handle, remove bones and skin; place meat in a deep pan or mold, just as it comes from the bone, using gizzard, liver and heart, until the mold is nearly full. To the water left in the kettle, add three-fourths of a box of Cox's gelatine (some add juice of lemon), dissolved in a little warm water, and boil until it is reduced to a little less than a quart, pour over the chicken in the mold, leave to cool, cut with a very sharp knife and serve. The slices will not easily break up if directions are followed.-Mrs. Prof. Roberts, Cape Girardeau, Mo. 2
A cold pressed-chicken loaf built on its own concentrated cooking liquid, stiffened with gelatine. The whole thing hinges on the broth being reduced hard enough to set clean, and on the meat going into the mold warm.
- Scale it downChickens of this period were generally smaller than today's supermarket birds, and six of them fill a mold big enough for a church supper. Working to about a sixth of the recipe, one 4-5 lb chicken with roughly a cup of well-reduced broth and an envelope (1/4 oz) of gelatine fills a standard 8x4-inch loaf pan.
- Cox's gelatineA box of the period is usually reckoned at about an ounce, though package sizes varied, so three-fourths of a box works out at roughly 3/4 oz, or three 1/4-oz envelopes of modern unflavored powdered gelatine, for a little under a quart of liquid. That gives a firm, sliceable aspic rather than a wobbly one, which is the point.
- "A small quantity of water"Barely cover the birds. The liquid is the setting medium, not stock to be discarded, so the less you start with the less you have to boil away later. Simmer, do not boil hard, or the meat shreds before it leaves the bone.
- Pack the meat warm"Just as soon as cold enough to handle" is deliberate. Warm chicken still carries surface gelatine and sticks to itself; cold, refrigerated meat packs into a loose mass that falls apart at the knife.
- Reduce, then check the setSkim the fat off the broth before reducing, or the loaf will have a greasy layer at the top. If you are unsure of the strength, chill a spoonful on a saucer for a few minutes before you pour.
- Chill properlyCool the filled mold no more than an hour at room temperature, then refrigerate at least 6 hours, preferably overnight. The original says only "leave to cool"; a large loaf of moist cooked poultry left standing at room temperature to set is exactly what modern practice avoids.
- Lemon and seasoningThe optional lemon juice is worth using; a cold jelly tastes flatter than the same broth hot, so season the liquid more assertively than seems right. A little of the giblet meat chopped fine rather than left whole makes for tidier slices.
- ServingDip the pan briefly in hot water and turn out, or line it with plastic wrap first. Slice with a thin blade wiped between cuts; serve cold with mustard, pickles or a sharp dressing.
Jellied and pressed chicken belongs to the great nineteenth-century family of cold molded meats, often linked to the French tradition of chaud-froid and volaille en gelée, and it was the standard way to use up several boiled fowls at once for a supper table, a picnic or a funeral gathering. Commercial gelatine is what made it a household dish rather than a professional one: before packaged brands, a cook had to raise her own jelly from calves' feet or pig skin, a day's work in itself. Cox's gelatine, made in Edinburgh by J. & G. Cox, was among the widely advertised brands in American kitchens of the 1870s and 1880s, and cookbooks of the period name it the way we might name a brand of baking powder. The Dixie Cook Book gathered contributions by name and town, and the credit to "Mrs. Prof. Roberts" of Cape Girardeau is typical of the era's practice of lending a recipe the authority of a real household.