Chicken Pudding

These days, any recipe or food item which has the word ‘pudding’ attached is usually thought of as a sweet dish, with a few exceptions – the only one I can now think of is steak and kidney pudding. In my Whitworth’s  ‘Spice of Life Cookery Book’. opened at random, I found a recipe for Chicken Pudding, with a variation using rabbit which “can be used in exactly the same way as chicken for a delicious savoury pudding. Parboil it first for five minutes and then wash it well to get rid of any strong flavour.” I think this demonstrates how over the years we have moved away from a fear of strong flavours, now we like a robust taste to our food! It may be delicate but we don’t want it faint!

Chicken Pudding

• suet pastry (double the quantities found on page: 9 – 6 oz Whitworth’s Self-raising Flour, pinch of salt, 2 ½ – 3 oz finely chopped suet, cold water) – enough for 5-6 helpings
• 1 boiling fowl
• 4 oz pale-gilled mushrooms
• seasoned flour
• water
• 1 onion
• bouquet garni
• parsley roots
• a small glass of cider
• pepper and salt
• ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg (if liked)

1. line a greased pudding bowl with three-quarters of the pastry
2. cut the chicken into suitable pieces, boning the legs and the larger part of the carcass.
3. put the bones, neck, skinned feet and giblets (except the liver which should be reserved for breakfast) into a stewpot and cover with cold water.
4. add an onion, a bouquet garni, some parsley roots, pepper and salt and a small glass of cider
5. cover and cook for several hours
6. roll the pieces of chicken in flour seasoned with pepper and salt and, if you like, ¾ teaspoon grated nutmeg.
7. place in the pastry-lined bowl and add the mushrooms, cut in quarters, and a squeeze of lemon juice
8. pour in enough of the strained cold chicken stock to come just below the level of the meat
9. wet the edges of the pastry and roll out the remaining piece, place it on top and pinch the edges together
10. cover with greased grease-proof paper and tie on a cloth
11. stand the bowl in a pan of boiling water reaching half-way up and boil for 3-3½ hours.
12. have the remaining hot strained stock ready
13. when the first piece of crust is cut out, pour in as much stock as the pudding will take
14. as the pudding is served, keep on adding the delicious stock or gravy

• a cloth is not necessary for puddings which require no more than 2-3 hours steaming. Simply cover them with 2-3 thicknesses of greaseproof paper, twisting them around and under the rim. No string is required.

There are several things I find interesting in this recipe and its instructions, we no longer have boiling fowl (which I guess are older, tougher birds) we just have ‘chicken’; I’ve rarely seen a recipe including parsley roots – and unless you grow it yourself I’m not sure you’d find them in today’s shops  – and I share a link about them below! Most mushrooms these days, commercially grown not wild-gathered, have dark gills – but I will look next time I’m in the greengrocer’s to see if there are any; I don’t remember cider as a thing when I was a child except for reading about it in books, but it obviously must have been available, I guess my parents didn’t like it! One of my very favourite spices is nutmeg, but how unusual to find it in an old savoury recipe – I know it was favoured in a generation before this book was written, but I’m delighted to see it make an appearance here. I cannot remember seeing my mum cooking a chicken which had feet, and I certainly have never seen them in ordinary butchers’ and supermarkets – maybe in places where chicken was bought at markets? Maybe many butchers would trim them off for their customers? The turkeys and large chickens my dad would buy at the cattle market for Christmas may have had feet, but I don’t remember them as long as I have been cooking. I think I am the only person I know who actually uses giblets etc to make stock, and the livers as a tasty treat. My mum always used a bouquet garni, but I have no memory whether she made it up herself, or whether shoe bought it from the greengrocer. I also don’t remember lemons being used in savoury dishes – until my mum started going to a Townswomen’s Guild cookery group where she would come home with more unusual dishes.

A very interesting recipe – and maybe I ought to have a go at making it as the recipe describes – I know husband and son who is living with us at present would enjoy it!

https://britishfoodhistory.com/2017/01/04/forgotten-foods-5-parsley-root/