Boiled Fowl
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the bird
Pick the bird carefully, singe, and wipe it inside and out.
Loosen the skin from the body and legs, then push the legs up inside the skin of the body.
Tie the legs together and to the tail, fold the skin over, and fasten with a few stitches of white thread.
Boil and serve
Rub the fowl with lemon juice, tie it in a buttered cloth, and place it in boiling water, breast down.
Simmer for about 1 hour, and remember to remove all stitches before serving.
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
- Fowl
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and moist as it simmers.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the chicken.
The step that matters
Remove all stitches before serving. The white thread used to hold the legs and skin in place is not meant to be eaten, and forgetting to remove it means it can end up on the plate. Checking every stitch before the bird is carved protects the diner.
“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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