Roast Chicken
After chicken has been dressed and cleaned, fill with stuffing, truss securely in compact shape, and lay on its back in roasting pan. Dredge with flour, salt and pepper, dot with bits of butter, if desired, and place in hot oven. As soon as flour is browned, reduce temperature to 350°F., begin to baste with cup of hot water every ten minutes. Cook until breast meat is tender, about 2 hours for 4-pound chicken. Longer for larger chicken.
A plain roasting method from the era before reliable oven thermostats and meat thermometers, which is why the timing runs long. The temperatures given are usable; the two hours is not.
- "Hot oven," then 350F"Hot oven" in period cookbooks is usually reckoned at roughly 400-450F. Give the bird 15-20 minutes there to set and brown the dredged flour, then drop to the 350F the recipe specifies.
- Cut the time by a thirdA 4-lb chicken at 350F is done in about 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes, not two hours. Modern birds are generally younger and more tender than the older fowl commonly sold when this was written, and two hours will leave the breast dry and stringy.
- Cook to temperature, not to the clock165F in the thickest part of the breast and 175F at the thigh joint, thermometer clear of the bone. "Until breast meat is tender" was the only test available when this was written.
- Stuffing inside the birdIf you stuff it, the centre of the stuffing must also reach 165F, which usually means the breast overcooks waiting for it. Baking the stuffing separately in a dish is the reliable route; if you stuff, pack it loosely and check it with the thermometer.
- "Dressed and cleaned" and "truss"In period usage "dressed" generally means plucked, with "cleaned" covering the drawing of the innards; a supermarket bird arrives in that state. Trussing here is simply tying the legs together and the wings against the body with kitchen twine so the bird holds a compact shape and cooks evenly.
- Basting with hot waterA cup of water every ten minutes steams the skin and washes off the seasoned flour. Baste with the pan drippings instead, or leave it alone; a splash of water in the pan only to keep the drippings from scorching.
- Rest before carvingThe original says nothing about it. Fifteen minutes under loose foil lets the juices settle and makes carving cleaner.
- YieldA 4-lb bird serves four generously, or five with a substantial stuffing and vegetables.
The presence of an actual number, 350F, points to a book written after oven thermostats became common; older books could only say "a moderate oven" and trust the reader's hand. Chicken was still a comparatively expensive meat in many American homes before the broiler industry industrialised and made it cheaper than beef, and the long roasting time suits birds older and tougher than anything sold today. The flour dredge is an old technique: it sets into a thin browned crust and thickens whatever collects in the pan into gravy without a separate step.