Roast Fowl with Savory Crumbs (1911)
Reader ratingsRoast fowl with savory crumbs from the 1911 paper-bag supper: a whole chicken roasted in a closed bag with its liver, a shallot and buttered crumbs with chives and tarragon.
- Recipe makes
- 1 chicken, serves 4
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
The chicken cooks in its bag for 65 to 80 minutes, depending on size, and rests 10 minutes before carving. Check it with a thermometer through the bag.
Roast fowl with buttered savory crumbs.
The story behind the recipe
The roast of the paper-bag supper is a whole chicken cooked in a closed bag, with its own liver and a small shallot inside and a spoonful of buttered crumbs, chives and tarragon tipped in beside it. Soyer’s Paper-Bag Cookery (1911) gives it a single instruction for the oven: “Cook gently for 65 minutes.”
One bag for the roast
The menu in the book’s story “The Bag and the Bachelor” lists “Roast Fowl. Savory Crumbs.” between the green peas and the new potatoes, and this is the recipe printed for it. The menu and the method come from the same chapter, written to show that a young barrister who hadn’t cooked since school could manage a whole supper by giving every dish its own bag.
The crumbs are the clever part. They go into the bag loose, not inside the bird, and cook in the butter and the juices that collect in the bottom of the bag. The book tells the cook to slip “bird and crumbs” out together onto a hot dish, with new potatoes and salad. Soyer’s own claim for his bags was that they improved the flavor and reduced the shrinkage; the rest of his case is in Why Did London Cook Dinner in Paper Bags in 1911?
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
We use a modern oven bag where the book used greased paper, and follow the bag maker’s instructions: a spoonful of flour shaken inside, slits in the top for steam and a pan underneath. The book washes the bird inside with cold water; food-safety advice today is not to rinse raw chicken, because the splashes spread bacteria, so we only pat it dry. We cook at 350°F (180°C) until the thickest part of the thigh reads 165°F (74°C), about the book’s hour for a 3½-pound bird.
For the course before this one, the same menu opens with Filleted Soles Fines Herbes (1911).
Fowl.—Savory crumbs. Wash the fowl out well inside with plenty of cold water. Dry well, put the liver and a small shallot inside the bird. ...
Recipe makes: 1 chicken, serves 4
Ingredients
For 1 chicken, serves 4. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 1 chicken, serves 4.
Chicken
- Chicken (3 1/2 to 4 lb), with its liver1
- Small shallot, peeled1
Savory crumbs
- Fresh white breadcrumbs2 tbsp
- Butter, softened1 oz
- Salt1/2 tsp
- Black pepper1/4 tsp
- Finely chopped chives1 tsp
- Finely chopped tarragon1 tsp
For the bag
- All-purpose flour1 tbsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1 whole chicken (3½ to 4 lb), with its liver
- 1 small shallot, peeled
- 2 tbsp fresh white breadcrumbs
- 1 oz butter, softened
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp finely chopped chives
- 1 tsp finely chopped tarragon
- 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
Equipment
- Large oven bag (about 16 by 17½ inches)
- Roasting pan at least 2 inches deep
- Small bowl
- Kitchen string or the bag’s tie
Instant-read thermometer
Instructions
Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C), with a shelf in the lower third.
Put the flour into the oven bag, close it and shake so the inside is coated. Set the bag in the roasting pan.
Take any giblets out of the chicken and keep the liver. Pat the chicken dry inside and out with paper towels; don’t rinse it.
Put the liver and the shallot inside the bird.
In the small bowl, mix the breadcrumbs, butter, salt, pepper, chives and tarragon into a soft, crumbly paste.
Slide the chicken into the bag, breast up, and spoon the crumb mixture into the bag beside it.
Close the bag with its tie, then cut six slits about ½ inch long in the top so steam can escape. Tuck the ends of the bag into the pan so no part of it touches the oven walls or racks.
Roast for 65 to 80 minutes, until the juices run clear and an instant-read thermometer pushed through a slit into the thickest part of the thigh, not touching bone, reads 165°F (74°C), as does the thickest part of the breast.
Rest the chicken in the bag for 10 minutes. Cut the top of the bag open with scissors, keeping your face away from the steam.
Lift the chicken onto a hot dish and spoon the crumbs and juices from the bag around it. Take out the shallot and liver before carving.
Nutrition
650calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 1 chicken, serves 4
- Servings
- 4
Estimated per serving (a quarter of the bird, with skin, and the crumbs) from USDA FoodData Central values for the listed ingredients.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
This is the book’s recipe for one fowl. A second chicken needs its own bag.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
The liver, inside the bird, cooks with it; check that it reaches 165°F (74°C) too if you plan to eat it. The book serves the fowl with new potatoes and salad. Contains wheat (breadcrumbs, flour) and milk.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After Nicolas Soyer, Soyer’s Paper-Bag Cookery (New York: Sturgis & Walton, 1911), Fowl, Savory Crumbs
Recipe details
- Course
- Main course
- Dish family
- Meat & Poultry
- Region
- British
- Era
- Edwardian
- Source decade
- 1910s
- Main ingredient
- Poultry & game birds
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- Dinner party