The 18th Century Fried Chicken Nathan Bailey's 1736 cookbook Dictionarium Domesticum
Nathan Bailey’s fried Chicken from the 1736 cookbook Dictionarium Domesticum
Servings 3 servings
Ingredients
Marinade
- 2 lemons large
- 2 - 3 tablespoons vinegar
- salt as needed
- pepper as needed
- 2 Cloves
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 - 3 spring onions stems chopped
- 2 Shallots
- 1 kilogram chicken boneless
Batter
- 2 cups flour
- 3 egg yolks
- ½ cup white wine
For Frying
- 2 - 3 cups vegetable oil
Garnish
- parsley
Instructions
- Prep the ingredients
- Chop the spring onions and shallots, extract the lemon juice, grind the cloves, pepper and bring them all together in a large bowl for marination. Add vinegar too.
- Add the boneless chicken to the marinade mix for three hours. I used a mallet to soften and even out the chicken. Also kept the skin.
- Bring together salt, egg yolks, flour and wine little by little till you achieve a fairly good batter consistency.
- In a large enough pan bring the oil to boiling temperature.
- Pat dry the chicken from the marinade and then add it to the batter ensuring it’s thoroughly mixed.
- Add to the boiling oil and take them out once its golden brown.
- Finally garnish with fried parsley
Notes
Somehow I found it difficult to keep the batter and chicken together during frying. It was kind of peeling of. Some chicken pieces were thicker and it didn’t cook all the way through. I think its important you mallet the pieces or cut them very thin. This is where the pressure frying technique is important.
