Fried Chicken

We usually think of fried chicken traditionally as an American dish, but today I’m going to share with you an old English recipe from a little recipe book by Nathan Bailey called “Dictionarium Domesticum” written in 1736 that I think will change the way you make fried chicken. It’s set up like a dictionary so it’s in alphabetical order and you’ll find this recipe under marinade.

• Whole Chicken Quartered
• Oil for frying
• Parsley Sprigs

Marinade

• 2 Large Lemons
• Equal amount Distilled Vinegar
• 2 Bay Leaves
• 1 tsp. Salt
• 1 tsp. Black Pepper
• ¼ tsp. Cloves
• ½ cup Green Onions or Shallots

Batter

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose Flour
• White Wine like Rhine Wine
• 3 Egg Yolks
• 1 tsp. Salt

Now this recipe is actually pretty simple. It starts off with a very basic marinade of lemon juice and verjuice or vinegar. Verjuice is actually a very common ingredient you’ll find in early 18^th century recipes. It comes from the juice of unripe unfermented grapes, and while it’s very sour, actually has a very mild flavor. If you’re going to use vinegar, what would have been typical in an 18^th century English setting would be malt vinegar, but the time period, it was called wine vinegar. If you can’t find malt vinegar or you are looking for a milder flavor you can use cider vinegar or even distilled vinegar.

We are going to use the juice of two large lemons and an equal amount of distilled vinegar. To that, I am going to add two bay leaves, a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of black pepper, and a quarter of a teaspoon of cloves. The last ingredient is something called chaebols and we had to look that one up. We found out that it is a spring onion or as we would call it, green onions and we are going to use a half a cup. You could substitute this with shallots as they were also very common in the 18^th century and it would probably make a very interesting flavor addition.

The recipe calls for quartering your chicken. I’ve actually cut it up into individual pieces so that it’ll go a little farther. The recipe suggests marinating this chicken for 3 hours and you should probably stick to that. Some of the more powerful ingredients, like the malt vinegar, can really enhance the flavor too much if you marinate for too long.

Once you come to the 3-hour mark, it’s time to work on the batter portion. Like our marinade, the batter is also very easy to make. I’m using about a cup and a half of flour, just regular all-purpose flour will work fine. Add enough white wine, like Rhine wine would be good, to make this into a thin pancake batter. If you don’t want to use wine, you could use cider instead or maybe just water. Finally, add the yolks of 3 eggs and a teaspoon of salt. You can top this off with a little more wine if needed to get the right batter consistency.

There was no suggestion of the particular kind of oil to fry in. In the 18^th century, they would most likely have used lard or even a clarified butter. You can use the modern oil of your choice. Be very careful If you are deep frying over an open fire. You want to heat your oil to about 350 degrees. You should see a little shimmer on the top, but definitely not smoking.

We’re going to fry this in batches of 3 or 4, maybe 5 pieces, depending on the size of your pot. I’m not sure exactly how long you want to cook it, but you want to get to the point where the color is a nice light mahogany brown.

Now before we serve this, there’s just one more component that we need to do, fried parsley. Now you may think that’s strange, but trust me, you’ll love it. Before you fry your parsley, make sure it is very, very dry. Blot it as much as possible, or the results can be disastrous. Fry it in small batches for several minutes until it gets nice and crispy. We’ll crumble this over the chicken as a tasty garnish.

18^th century fried chicken flavors are definitely a little different than what you’re used to. That marinade does something really special. You get a little bit of that lemon flavor coming through just a little bit with a hint of that wonderful flavor and the crispiness and the fried parsley is really interesting. I really love this recipe. If you give this one a try, I really hope you go down in the comments section and tell us how it works out. I love this one and I think everyone should try it.

Transcript of Video:

We usually think of fried chicken as well, traditionally an American dish, but today I’m going to share with you an old English recipe from 1736 that I think will change the way you make fried chicken. Thanks for joining us today on 18^th Century Cooking.

The recipe today comes from the little recipe book by Nathan Bailey called “Dictionarium Domesticum” from 1736 and it’s an odd little cookbook. It’s set up like a dictionary so it’s in alphabetical order and this recipe you’ll find under marinade. So that’s where we need to start with this recipe, with the marinade. Now this one’s actually pretty simple. It starts off with the liquid portion which is lemon juice and verjuice or vinegar. Verjuice is actually a very common ingredient you’ll find in early 18^th century recipes. It comes from the juice of unripe grapes, unfermented, and while it’s very sour, it actually has a very mild flavor. If you’re going to use vinegar, the vinegar that would have been typical in an 18^th century, especially English, setting would be malt vinegar. In the time period, they called it wine vinegar, but it’s actually malt vinegar today. If you can’t find that or you want to use something that doesn’t quite have that kind of a flavor, then you can use cider vinegar or even distilled vinegar. Lemons were available as well, depending on your location and your social position and interestingly enough, lemon zest or lemon peel was the second most common type of spice you’ll find in many of the 18^th century cookbooks, so very common. In this case I’m opting for the juice of two large lemons and an equal amount of distilled vinegar. The recipe suggests salt, pepper, cloves and bay leaf, but no real amounts here, except for the number of bay leaves, two bay leaves, so we’re guessing maybe a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of black pepper, and a quarter of a teaspoon of cloves, and the last ingredient is something called chaebols and we had to look that one up. That’s a spring onions or as we would call it, green onions. I’ve got about a half a cup. Shallots are something that you could substitute in in this place as shallots were very common in the 18^th century and it would probably make a very interesting flavor addition.

The recipe calls for quartering your chicken. I’ve actually cut it up into individual pieces so that it’ll go a little farther. The recipe suggests marinating this chicken for 3 hours and you should probably stick to that. If you used some of the more powerful, like the malt vinegar, it can really enhance the flavor too much so 3 hours is a good time.

We’re coming up on our 3 hour mark and it’s time to work on the batter portion and this is a little bit different than what I’m used to. Like our marinade, the batter is also very easy to make. I’m using about a cup and a half of flour, just regular all-purpose flour will work fine and enough white wine, like a Rhine wine, would be good, adding enough to make this into a thin pancake batter, and finally I’m going to add the yolks of 3 eggs. You can top this off with a little more wine if you need to to get to the right batter consistency, and finally a teaspoon of salt will finish this off and mix it so that it’s nice and even. If you don’t want to use wine, you could use cider instead or maybe just water. There was no suggestion of the particular kind of oil to fry it in. In the 18^th century, they would have used lard probably or even a clarified butter. You can use the modern oil of your choice. We are deep frying with oil right over an open fire. Obviously you have to be very careful when you’re doing it like this. You want to heat your oil to about 350 degrees. You should see a little shimmer in the top, definitely not smoking.

We’re going to fry this in batches of 3 or 4 pieces, maybe 5 pieces. Really it depends on the size of your pot, and I’m not sure exactly how long you want to cook it, but you want to get to the point where the color is a nice light mahogany brown.

Now before we serve this, there’s just one more component that we need to do, fried parsley. Now you may think that’s strange, but trust me, you’ll love it. Before you fry this parsley, make sure it is very, very dry. Completely dry, blot it as much as possible, or the results can be disastrous. Fry it in small batches for several minutes until it gets nice and crispy. We’ll crumble this over the chicken as a tasty garnish.

Well, there it is. It looks wonderful, let’s find out just how it tastes.

Wow, 18^th century fried chicken, and the flavors are definitely a little different than what you’re used to. That marinade does something really special. You get a little bit of that lemon flavor comes through just a little bit, a hint of that wonderful flavor and the crispiness, the fried parsley is really interesting. Mmm, I really love this recipe. This one is great! Who would have thought 18^th century fried chicken? It’s great. If you give this one a try, I really hope you go down in the comments section and tell us how it works out. I love this one and I think everyone should try it. I want to thank you for coming along as we experiment. We try these really interesting things out, this food from history. I want to thank you for joining me as we savor the flavors and the aromas of the 18^th century.

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