SMOTHERED CHICKEN WITH OYSTERS
Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea
By Marion Harland [Mary Virginia Terhune] (1875)
SMOTHERED CHICKEN WITH OYSTERS.
• 1 fine, fat chicken.
• 1 pint of oysters, or enough to fill the chicken.
• Dressing of chopped oysters, parsley and crumbs.
• 1 table-spoonful butter.
• 3 table-spoonfuls cream.
• 1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
• Yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs.
• Pepper and salt to taste, with chopped parsley for sauce.
Clean the chicken, washing it out with two or three waters.
Fill the "craw" with the prepared stuffing, tying up the neck very securely. Then, pack the main cavity of the body with oysters and sew up the vent.
Have ready a clean tin pail with a closely-fit ting top.
Put the fowl, neatly trussed, into it, cover and set in a pot of cold water.
Bring to a boil, and cook slowly for more than an hour after the water in the outer vessel begins to boil.
If the fowl bo not young, it may be needful to keep it in two hours.
Do not open the inner vessel in less than an hour.
Having ascertained that the chicken is tender throughout, take it out and lay on a hot dish, covering immediately.
Turn the gravy into a saucepan, thicken with the corn-starch, add the cream, parsley, seasoning and the boiled yolks chopped fine.
Boil up once; pour a little over the chicken, and serve the rest in a sauce-boat.
The complete 'Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea' may be found on the Michigan State University website:
'Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project'
http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/
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