Fricassed Chicken, 1849

I used some of the leftover boiled chicken to make a "fricassee of chickens", also out of Mrs. Putnam's Receipt Book (1849). My only previous attempt at a fricassee was using the receipt from Miss Leslie's Complete Cookery (1851) when cooking at the fort some years back. I recall that version had a very strong, complexly flavored gravy with mace, nutmeg, cayenne, and parsley. 

This receipt was much simpler in its ingredients, and also in its flavor profile. The use of left-over chicken is based on the chicken fricassee in Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861), which classifies it as "cold meat cookery". Miss Leslie's and Mrs. Putnam's books do not specify that pre-cooked meat must be used--and the washing step suggests it is not intended.

As previously noted, my carving skills are approximately non-existent, so I ended up with rather finer bits of meat than the "good sized pieces" called for. Meanwhile, I melted 4 oz of butter on the stove (working on half-scale), and proceeded to lightly fry the meat in the boiling butter. To that, I added 1 cup of boiling water, another generous pinch of salt and of pepper, and enough flour to start thickening things (about 2 Tablespoons).  After 10 or so minutes further cooking, I removed the dish from the heat, and served it. 

Served with bread and potatoes. And wine.

The quantity of butter made for a very rich dish; I think that even working on this half-scale, it was more butter than perhaps was needed for this amount of meat. The dish still tasted fine--additional seasoning would have been nice, but the salt/pepper/butter combination is perfectly nice. Using pre-cooked meat didn't harm it, that I could tell. So, the generally verdict is that it's fine, and easy, but could be more heavily seasoned.