Recipes: Chicken and Poultry

Chicken Pie

Adapted from Glasse 1774

  • 1.5 lbs chicken breast
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1.5 cups milk
  • 3 tbsp butter
  • 1 onion chopped
  • 1 cup chopped celery
  • 1/3 cup all purpose flour
  • 2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
  • 1 tbsp fresh parsley
  • 1/2 tsp dried thyme
  • 1 9 inch pastry

  1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine the chicken meat, chicken broth, salt and pepper. Bring to a low boil, reducing the heat to low.

  2. Cover and simmer for 30 mins or until chicken is no longer pink and the juices run clear. Remove the chicken, straining it from the broth and letting it cool.

  3. Pour the remaining chicken broth mixture into a measuring cup. Let stand and skim off the fat. Add enough milk to the broth mixture to equal 2.5 cups. Cut the cooled chicken into 1/2 inch pieces.

  4. In the same pan melt butter over medium heat. Add the onion and the celery. Saute, stirring for around 3 minutes. Stir in the flour until well blending.

  5. Gradually stir in broth mixture. Simmer stirring constantly until the sauce thickens and boils. Add the chicken, vegetables, parsley and thyme. Pour the mixture into a deep casserole dish.

  6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

  7. Roll out the pastry 1 inch larger than the diameter of the casserole dish on a lightly floured surface. Cut slits in the pastry for venting air. Place pastry on top of casserole. Roll edges and cut away the extra pastry, fluting the edges.

  8. Brush with beaten egg and bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbling. Let stand and cool 10 minutes and serve.

Make a puff-paste crust, take two chickens, cut them to pieces, season them with pepper and salt, a little beaten mace, lay a force-meat made thus round the side of the dish : take half a pound of veal, half a pound of suet, beat them quite fine in marble mortar, with as many crumbs of bread ; season it with a very little pepper and salt, an anchovy with the liquor, cut the anchovy to pieces, a little lemon-peel cut very fine and shred small, a very little thyme, mix all together with the yolk of an egg, make some into round balls, about twelve, the rest lay round the dish. Lay in one chicken over the bottom of the dish, take two sweet-breads, cut them into five or six pieces, lay them all over, season them with pepper and salt, strew over them half an ounce of truffles and morels, two or three artichoke-bottoms cut to pieces, a few cocks-combs, if you have them, a palate boiled tender and cut to pieces then lay on the other part of the chicken, put half a pint of water in, and cover the pie ; bake it well, and when it comes out of the oven, fill it with good gravy, lay on the crust, and send it to table.

Glasse, Hannah. 1774. The art of cookery, made plain and easy … By a lady (Hannah Glasse). A new edition, etc. London: W. Strahan, etc.


Chicken Braised in Wine and Rosemary

Adapted from The art of cookery, made plain and easy, 1774

  • 4 bone-in chicken drumsticks
  • 4 bone-in chicken thighs
  • kosher salt
  • pepper
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup chopped shallots
  • 1 tbsp chopped garlic
  • 1 tsp fresh rosemary
  • 1 cup rich red wine
  • 1 cup unsalted chicken stock
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 14.5 ounces unsalted whole tomatoes, 1 can
  • 2 tsp fresh parsley
  • 1 bay leaf

  1. Make a 1/2 inch cut in each chicken piece. Season well with salt and pepper. Heat a large dutch oven over high heat. Add oil to pan, swirl to coat.

  2. Place flour in a shallow dish. Dredge chicken in flour. Add chicken to pan and cook 5 minutes on each side, careful not to crowd the pan. Remove from pan.

  3. Add shallots, garlic and rosemary to pan. Cook two minutes or until tender, stirring frequently. Add wine to pan and bring to a boil. Cook one minute, scraping to loosen browned bits.

  4. Add salt and pepper, chicken stock, sugar, tomatoes and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, return chicken to pan.

  5. Reduce heat to medium and cook, partially covered, 15 minutes or until chicken is done, turning once. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve.

LET your sauce-pan be very clean and nice; when the water boils put in your chicken, which must be very nicely picked and clean, and laid in cold water a quarter of an hour before it is boiled; then take it out of the water boiling, and lay it in a pewter-dish. Save all the liquor that runs from it in the dish, cut up your chicken all in joints in the dish; then bruise the liver very fine, add a little boiled parsley chopped very fine, a very little salt, and a very little grated nutmeg : mix it all well together with two spoonfuls of the liquor of the fowl, and pour it into the dish with the rest of the liquor in the dish. If there is not liquor enough, take two or three spoonfuls of the liquor it was boiled in, clap another dish over it ; then set it over a chaffing dish of hot coals five or six minutes, and carry it to table hot with the cover on. This is better than butter, and lighter for the stomach, though some chuse it only with the liquor, and no parsley, nor liver, or any thing else, and that is according to different palates. If it is for a very weak person take off the skin of the chicken before you set it on the chaffing-dish. If you roast it, make nothing but bread-sauce, and that is lighter than any sauce you can make for a weak stomach.

Thus you may dress a rabbit, only bruise a little piece of liver.

Glasse, Hannah. 1774. The art of cookery, made plain and easy … By a lady (Hannah Glasse). A new edition, etc. London: W. Strahan, etc.


Chicken Fricassee

Adapted from Hale, 1851

  • 3 tbsp all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp poultry seasoning
  • kosher salt
  • black pepper
  • 24 ounces skinned chicken breast halves
  • 2 tsp butter
  • 1.5 cups chopped onion
  • 1/2 cup chopped celery
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • 1/4 cup dry white wine
  • 2 cups carrots, julienned
  • 1/4 cup fresh parsley

  1. Combine flour, paprika, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper in a large zip top bag. Add chicken and toss well to coat. Remove chicken from bag and reserve flour mixture.

  2. Melt butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add chicken and saute 5 minutes or until chicken is browned. Remove from pan; keep warm.

  3. Add onions, garlic and celery to pan. Saute 5 minutes. Stir in reserved flour mixture and cook 1 minute.

  4. Add broth and wine and bring to a boil. Add carrots. Return chicken to pan. Cover and reduce heat, simmering 25 minutes or until chicken is done.

  5. Sprinkle with the chopped parsley and serve.

Wash and cut the chicken into joints; scald and take off the skin, put the pieces in a stewpan, with an onion cut small, a bunch of parsley, a little thyme and lemon-peel, salt and pepper – add a pint of water, a bit of butter as large as an egg. Stew it an hour; a little before serving, add the yolks of two eggs gradually; take care that this gravy does not boil.

Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell. 1851. The way to live well: and to be well while we live, containing directions for choosing and preparing food in regard to health, economy, and taste. Boston: Horace Wentworth.