Boiled Fowl
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wrap the fowl in buttered paper or a white cloth.
Place it in a saucepan and cover with white stock or water, breast side down.
Cook and serve
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently until tender, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Serve with egg or white sauce.
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
- Surrey fowl
- Provides the main protein, which firms and turns tender as it cooks slowly in liquid.
- White stock or water
- Cooks the bird evenly by gently surrounding it with moist heat.
The step that matters
Simmer gently rather than boil hard. A vigorous boil toughens muscle fibres and can break the skin and cloth wrapping. A gentle simmer lets the connective tissue soften slowly, so the fowl stays tender and moist.
“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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