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January 5
Menu: Cheese Canapes; Julienne Soup Bread Sticks; Roast Stuffed Chicken, Brown Gravy; Creamed Cauliflower Potato Croquettes; Olive Salad; Cheese Relish; Coffee; Pistachio Ice Cream Roast Stuffed Chicken-6 tablespoons breadcrumbs, 2 tablespoons Crisco, 2 tablespoons chopped cooked ham, 1 beaten egg, 1 teaspoon chopped parsley, 1 chicken, 2 tablespoons milk, seasoning red pepper, white pepper, salt, powdered mace and herbs to taste. Clean and draw chicken. Melt Crisco, add it to crumbs, ham, egg, parsley, milk, and seasonings; mix and place in breast of fowl. If young chicken leave on feet, which should be scalded and skinned; if an older bird, cut off legs half-way to first joint, turn back pinions, run skewer through them, catching top part of legs; tie bottom part of legs together. Set in hot oven from 3/4 to 174 hours, according to size; baste well with melted Crisco, and about 15 minutes before it is finished dredge with flour and brown. To make brown gravy, pour from tin fat, sprinkle in 2 teaspoons browned flour, then add 1 cup boiling water, containing ½ teaspoon extract beef, salt and pepper; allow this to boil 3 minutes, strain over chicken, or serve in sauceboat.
An Edwardian roast chicken with a ham-and-crumb forcemeat packed into the neck end rather than the body cavity. The printed text has suffered at the hands of the typesetter or the scanner in one place, so read the timing with care.
- On the timingThe printed page gives 3/4 to 1¼ hours, which is what our text now reads. Judge by weight and temperature all the same: a 4 lb bird takes roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, and the thigh should read 165F.
- "Hot oven"The book gives no temperatures; in period usage a hot oven is generally taken as somewhere around 400-450F. Starting hot and basting suits a small bird; for anything over 4 lb, drop to 375F after the first 20 minutes so the breast does not dry before the legs are done.
- Where the stuffing goes"Place in breast of fowl" means the crop or neck cavity, under the loose skin at the front, not the body cavity. Fold the neck skin under and secure it. Any surplus is better baked separately than crammed into the bird, and stuffing must reach 165F wherever it sits.
- Extract of beefA concentrated meat paste sold as Bovril, Liebig's or similar. A half teaspoon of beef bouillon concentrate or a stock cube crumbled into the cup of water does the same job; season lightly afterwards, as modern versions are saltier.
- Browned flourFlour toasted dry in a pan or a slow oven until nut-coloured, commonly kept ready in a jar in kitchens of the period. It thickens less than raw flour but gives the gravy its colour and a roasted note. Toast a few tablespoons at a time over medium heat, stirring constantly.
- The feetLeaving scalded, skinned feet attached was a sign of a genuinely young bird. Supermarket chickens arrive without them; ignore the instruction and simply tie the drumsticks together and tuck the wing tips back.
- Crisco for bastingThe book exists to sell hydrogenated shortening, hence melted Crisco in the stuffing and over the skin. Butter browns better and tastes better here; the bird's own rendered fat is fine once it begins to run.
- MacePowdered mace, the outer coat of nutmeg, is the seasoning that dates this forcemeat. Use it sparingly, about a quarter teaspoon, or it dominates the ham.
- YieldA 4 lb bird with this stuffing serves four generously, with enough gravy for the accompanying potatoes.
This page comes from a calendar of dinners rather than a chapter of recipes: the Procter & Gamble cookbook by Marion Harris Neil, first published as The Story of Crisco (1913) and issued in later editions under the title A Calendar of Dinners, offered a suggested menu for every day of the year, and this chicken is tied to January 6. The commercial purpose is visible in the text itself, where Crisco replaces butter in the forcemeat and lard or drippings in the basting, the whole book being an argument that a vegetable shortening could stand in for animal fat anywhere in the kitchen. The dish behind the salesmanship is older and thoroughly English: a bread and ham forcemeat seasoned with mace and herbs, pushed into the crop, with a gravy built on browned flour and a spoonful of meat extract. Extract of beef had become a pantry staple after Liebig's commercial product spread through the 1870s and 1880s, and its appearance here shows how quickly a factory-made concentrate settled into ordinary domestic gravy-making. The instruction about the feet points to a time when cooks bought birds whole from a poulterer and the state of the feet could indicate the age of the bird.