Fricassee of Small Chickens

History

'Fricassee of Small Chickens' appears in Mary Randolph's The Virginia House-Wife, an 1824 cookbook considered the first regional American cookbook. As printed, the recipe joints four chickens, then stews the pieces with 'pepper, salt, and a little mace,' covered with water, until tender; half a pint of the cooking water is thickened with two tablespoons of flour rubbed into four ounces of butter, enriched with half a pint of new milk, and finished with 'a gill of white wine, stirring it in carefully that it may not curdle' before the chickens are returned and heated through. The dish's name records the cooking method, not an origin story: a fricassee is 'a stew made with pieces of meat that have been browned in butter, then served in a sauce flavored with the cooking stock'. The word entered English in the 1560s from the French fricasser, 'mince and cook in sauce', and the technique is documented in French cookery well before that — recipes fitting the description appear in the medieval French cookbook Le Viandier (c.1300), which used the term friquassee in its 1490 printed edition. Beyond the term's French lineage and the recipe's place in Randolph's book, the record does not document a specific social meaning for this dish or for its use of mace.

Ingredients

• 4 Small chickens
• Pepper
• Salt
• Mace
• Water
• 2 tablespoons Flour
• 4 ounces Butter
• 1/2 pint Water
• 1/2 pint New milk
• 1 gill White wine

Instructions

1. Take off the legs and wings of four chickens, separate the breasts from the backs, cut off the necks, and divide the backs across.
2. Clean the gizzards nicely, and put them with the livers and other parts of the chicken, after being washed clean, into a sauce pan.
3. Add pepper, salt, and a little mace, cover them with water, and stew them till tender; then take them out.
4. Thicken half a pint of the water with two table spoonsful of flour rubbed into four ounces of butter, add half a pint of new milk, and boil all together a few minutes.
5. Then add a gill of white wine, stirring it in carefully that it may not curdle.
6. Put the chickens in, and continue to shake the pan until they are sufficiently hot, and serve them up.