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Smothered Chicken
Select a rather large broiling chicken; singe, split down the back; spread it open, turning the tips of the wings under and crossing the legs. Put in a roasting pan, cover with four tablespoonfuls of butter, dust with salt and pepper, add four tablespoonfuls of boiling water, cover closely with a second pan or cover, put in a hot oven and roast one hour. Sprinkle with chopped parsley, make a gravy from the drippings in the pan. A delicious way to cook chicken when well seasoned and basted.
A straightforward covered roast that depends on the bird being small and split flat. The method is sound; only the bird size and the oven wording need translating.
- "Broiling chicken"Period cookbooks generally meant a young bird of about 1 to 2.5 lb, though definitions varied, so a "rather large" one is at the top of that range. A supermarket 3.5-4 lb chicken will work split the same way but wants longer, roughly 70-80 minutes.
- Hot oven"hot" in this period conventionally means somewhere around 400-450F. If the pan is tightly covered the bird steams as much as it roasts, so the high heat is what keeps it from going pallid; uncover for the last 15 minutes to colour the skin.
- Splitting down the backThis is spatchcocking. Cut along both sides of the backbone, press the bird flat until the breastbone cracks, then tuck the wing tips and cross the legs as directed so nothing burns or curls up.
- The cover matters mostAn inverted second roasting pan or a well-fitting lid traps the steam that gives this dish its name. A loose foil tent will not do the same job; the four tablespoons of water are meant to be held in, not evaporated.
- BastingThe closing line, not the method, tells you to baste. Lift the cover two or three times and spoon the butter and drippings over the bird; that is the difference between this and a plain covered roast.
- DonenessAn hour at 425F under cover will overshoot on a small bird. Go by temperature: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, away from the bone.
- The gravyThere is a good deal of butter in the pan. Pour off most of the fat, then loosen the browned bits with a little stock or water and reduce; add a teaspoon of flour to the reserved fat first if you want it thickened.
- YieldA 2.5 lb split bird serves two, generously; a 4 lb one serves three to four.
"Smothered" in nineteenth-century American cookery meant cooked close-covered in its own steam and fat, and the term was applied to chicken, rabbit and beefsteak alike long before it came to suggest a blanket of cream gravy. The dish belongs to the era when poultry was sold by stage of growth: broilers for splitting and quick high heat, roasters for the spit or pan, fowls and capons for boiling and stewing. A cookbook of this period could write "broiling chicken" without further explanation. The technique sits between broiling and roasting, and the second pan clapped over the top helped keep a lean young bird from drying.