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Pressed Chicken
Take one or two chickens, boil in a small quantity of water with a little salt, and when thoroughly done, take all the meat from the bones, removing the skin, and keeping the light meat separate from the dark; chop and season to taste with salt and pepper. If a meat presser is at hand take it, or any other mold such as a crock or pan will do; put in a layer of light and a layer of dark meat till all is used, add the liquor it was boiled in, which should be about one tea-cupful, and put on a heavy weight; when cold cut in slices. Many chop all the meat together, add one pounded cracker to the liquor it was boiled in, and mix all thoroughly before putting in the mold; either way is nice. Boned turkey can be prepared in the same way, slicing instead of chopping.
A jellied loaf that depends entirely on the cooking liquid setting firm, so the key is to keep that liquid concentrated rather than to boil the birds in a full pot of water.
- The hinge: little water, strong brothBoiling in "a small quantity of water" is not thrift, it is structure. The collagen from the bones and skin has to be concentrated enough to gel; if the broth does not set to a wobble when a spoonful is chilled on a saucer, reduce it further before pouring it over the meat.
- A tea-cupfulPeriod equivalency tables usually reckon a teacup at somewhere between half a cup and a cup, commonly about 3/4 cup, rather than the modern 8-ounce measuring cup. The recipe gives the same one tea-cupful whether you use one bird or two; use enough to moisten and bind, not to float the meat.
- Chickens then and nowA nineteenth-century boiling fowl was an older, tougher, more gelatinous bird that could stand an hour and a half or more. A modern 3-4 lb supermarket chicken is done in about 45-60 minutes at a bare simmer, and will fall apart if pushed much past that. Two of them make a substantial loaf.
- Pounded crackerA plain soda or water cracker, crushed fine. It acts as a binder in the variation where all the meat is chopped together, useful if the broth is thin.
- The meat presserUsually a screw-down press. A loaf pan works: line it with plastic wrap, pack the meat in tightly, cover with wrap, lay a second pan on top and weight it with a couple of tins.
- Chill under weight, not on the counterThe original assumes a cold larder. Press it in the refrigerator and leave it there overnight; a meat loaf held at room temperature for hours is exactly the condition that spoils it. Keep the finished loaf refrigerated and eat it within three days.
- SlicingCut with a thin sharp knife straight from the refrigerator. Warm pressed chicken crumbles. Serving it cold with mustard, pickles or a sharp salad is the point of the dish.
Pressed meats belong to the era before household refrigeration, when a cooked bird had to be turned into something that would keep a few days in a cool larder and be ready to slice for supper, picnics or a cold table. The technique is a plain domestic cousin of the French galantine and of English potted and moulded meats: cook, bone, pack, weight, and let the gelatin in the broth do the setting. The instruction to keep light and dark meat separate and lay them in alternating strata is purely for looks, giving a marbled cross-section when sliced. Its appearance in The Dixie Cook Book ing of of the Midwestern Buckeye Cookery marketed to Southern readers alongside the note that boned turkey can be treated the same way, reflects a household economy in which a large bird was expected to reappear at the table in a second and more decorative form.