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To Make a Fowl Tender As Spring Chicken

A roasted fowl seasoned, wrapped in paper, and cooked until tender, served with a gravy made from giblets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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To Make a Fowl Tender As Spring Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fowl

  1. Twist the wings over the back and press the legs against the body. Secure them with a skewer and twine.

  2. Fasten the neck skin to the back with a toothpick. Season the fowl and wrap it entirely in soft paper.

  3. Tie the paper securely with twine.

Roast

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C).

  2. Place the wrapped fowl in the oven at 11:30 AM, half an hour earlier than a young chicken.

  3. At 12:15 PM, remove the paper and let the grease run into the pan.

  4. Dust the fowl lightly with flour.

  5. Return the fowl to the oven and roast, turning it often until well browned.

  6. Remove the skewer and string.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Pour the gravy from the giblets into the dripping pan, adding finely chopped liver and gizzard.

  2. Season the gravy and add 2 drops of caramel if it isn't a nice rich brown.

  3. Serve the gravy in a sauceboat.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Yearling fowl
Provides the meat that roasts tender and juicy under the paper wrap.
Flour
Dusted on the skin to help it brown during the final roasting.
Gravy from giblets
Forms the sauce served with the fowl, built from the drippings and giblets.
Caramel
Deepens the color of the gravy to a rich brown when added.

The step that matters

Turning the fowl during final roasting. Turning it often lets heat reach all sides evenly, so the skin browns uniformly without drying or scorching in spots.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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