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Broiled Spring Chicken with Bacon
Procure two fine, tender spring chickens of one and a quarter pounds each. Singe and cut off the legs at the first joints (keeping them for soup stock). Remove the back, split through the spine, beginning at the neck, totally removing the spine with neck. Neatly draw. Remove the breast bones, wipe them with a towel and nicely flatten them with a cleaver. Place one-half tablespoon oil on a flat dish with a teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper; turn the chicken several times in the seasoning. Arrange them on a clean double broiler, and broil on a brisk fire for eight minutes on each side. Remove. Have six pieces of fresh toast on a hot dish; dress the chicken on the toast.
Equally spread a maitre d'hotel butter over the chicken. Arrange twelve slices of freshly broiled bacon over them and serve.
A spatchcocked bird under high heat, finished with parsley-lemon butter and bacon. The only real difficulty is that the birds specified are much smaller than what a supermarket sells today.
- "Spring chicken" at 1¼ lbThat is a poussin or a Cornish game hen, not a fryer. Two of them serve four at most; a modern 3½–4 lb chicken split and flattened the same way will take 30–40 minutes, not sixteen, and is better finished in a 425F oven than under direct heat the whole time.
- The double broilerA hinged wire grill basket that clamps the flattened bird between two grids so it can be turned in one motion. A heavy grill press or a second skillet set on top of the bird in a hot pan does the same job.
- SaltspoonA quarter teaspoon. So the seasoning is about a teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of white pepper for two small birds, which is right.
- Brisk fireLive coals raked flat, or a broiler at its highest setting with the rack close. If using a broiler, keep the birds 4–5 inches from the element so the skin colours in the eight minutes rather than burning in four.
- Doneness over timingEight minutes a side suits a flattened 1¼ lb bird and nothing larger. Check the thickest part of the thigh for 165F; the thigh joint should move freely and the juices run clear.
- Maître d'hôtel butterNot specified here, the recipe assuming the cook already has it: softened butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper, then chilled. Roughly a quarter cup butter, a tablespoon parsley, and the juice of half a lemon here.
- Splitting the birdCutting out the whole spine and neck, then removing the breastbone and flattening with the flat of a cleaver, is what makes the bird cook evenly at high heat. Skipping the breastbone leaves the halves domed and the thighs underdone.
- ServingSix pieces of toast and twelve rashers of bacon for two birds, though the two birds yield only four halves, so the toast and bacon do not divide evenly into half-bird portions. Warm the plates; the butter is meant to melt into the toast, not sit on it.
Broiled spring chicken was one of the fixed points of American and Anglo-French hotel cookery around 1900, when "spring chicken" meant a genuinely seasonal item: young birds hatched in late winter and sold at a pound or so before the days of year-round production. This recipe belongs to that hotel tradition, and the finish here is pure restaurant grammar of the period — a slab of maître d'hôtel butter, a compound butter whose name is traditionally explained as a reference to the head of the dining room, though that derivation is folk explanation rather than documented fact. The bones kept back for stock and the toast set underneath to catch the butter and juices are both signs of a professional kitchen writing for other professionals: nothing wasted, and the plate assembled hot at the last moment.