Braised Fowl

Ingredients

• a fowl
• one or two ounces of butter
• slices of carrot
• slices of turnip
• slices of onion
• slices of celery
• a good slice of fat bacon
• about one pint of brown stock
• a tablespoonful of mushroom catsup
• a tablespoonful of sherry
• pepper to season
• salt to season

Method

1. 1

   Truss a fowl as for boiling, and lard the breast if liked.

2. 2

   In a pan, melt butter, add carrot, turnip, onion, celery, and herbs.

3. 3

   Place the fowl on top, cover, and cook gently for 20 minutes.

4. 4

   Pour in brown stock, cover with buttered paper, and cook slowly for 1.5 hours, basting frequently.

5. 5

   Brown the fowl before serving.

6. 6

   Strain and thicken the stock for gravy, adding mushroom catsup or sherry if desired.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Home cookery (1898) by North Midland School of Cookery, page 36. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Braised Fowl. Truss a fowl as for boiling, and (if liked) lard the breast. Place in a pan one or two ounces of butter, then slices of carrot, turnip, onion, celery, and a bunch of herbs. On these place the fowl, and put upon it a good slice of fat bacon. Put the lid on the pan, and let all cook gently for twenty minutes ; then pour round the fowl about one pint of brown stock (second stock will do), cover with a buttered paper, cover closely to keep in the steam, and cook slowly for about one and a half hours. Baste frequently with the stock. When nearly done take out the fowl, and brown it with a salamander, in the oven, or before the fire. Strain the stock from the vegetables, and thicken it. Serve it in a sauce-tureen. If liked a tablespoonful of mushroom catsup or sherry may be added to the gravy, which must be seasoned with pepper and salt. The fowl may be garnished with cooked tomatoes filled with potato puree. Poulet au-riz. This is an economical manner of cooking an old fowl, and is very common in France. The disadvantages of old fowls are that they are tough and tasteless. The first defect can be to a certain extent remedied by long, gentle stewing, and the second by the addition of suitable flavourings of herbs and vegetables. Let the fowl be killed in cold weather, so that it may hang- as long as possible before it is cooked. Some persons recommend that the fowl should be wrapped in a cloth and buried in the earth for a few hours, which is said to have the effect of making it tender. When it has been trussed (for boiling), it should be put into a pan with about two pints of cold stock ; cover it, and when it boils the following vegetables 86 should be added : — one larg'e onion or two small ones, half a head of celery, a bunch of herbs, also six pepper- corns. Cover the pan closely, and stew very gently for one hour, then add a small teacupful of rice ; stew very gently and closely covered till the fowl and rice are quite tender. More stock may be added if required, but when the dish is ready the rice should have absorbed almost the whole of the stock ; there must not be more stock left than is sufficient to serve on the dish with the rice and fowl. When the fowl is quite done remove the vegetables, and serve it on a dish surrounded by the rice, which must have been previously seasoned with pepper and salt. Old fowls may also be stewed in the preceding- manner (omitting the rice), and may then be served with mushroom or celery sauce. As these sauces are strongly flavoured, they will counteract the tasteless- ness of the fowl. Fried Chicken. This dish is popular in America, and the following recipe was furnished by an American lady. Cut a freshly killed young chicken into joints, wash and dry them carefully, and roll them in flour, in which a little pepper and salt have been mixed. Heat an equal quantity of dripping and butter (about one ounce of each) in a pan, fry the chicken in this, and when it is done, keep it hot, while the sauce is made in the following* manner : — Flour I dessertspoonful. Milk I pint. Pepper and salt to season

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.