FAMILY RECIPE FRIDAY–HOW TO MAKE BAKED CHICKEN FRICASSEE

My grandmother, Florence Bowden Milne left us a spiral bound notebook, written entirely by hand.  The notebook was begun about the time of her marriage to my grandfather, Joseph A. Milne in 1906.  In it she left a treasure chest of family information and wonderful clues to life back in the early 1900's.  
 
P.S.  That's my grandmother in the group picture of the ladies on the right side of my home page.  She's the one standing on the right.

TODAY'S FEATURED RECIPE

BAKED CHICKEN FRICASSEE

According to Wikipedia, a chicken fricassee is a “method of cooking meat in which the meat is cut up, sautéed and braised, and served with its sauce, traditionally a white sauce.”

This recipe from my grandmother doesn’t seem very detailed compared to the recipes I looked at online.  However, here it is, as written by her.  

My grandmother's recipe for baked chicken fricassee

Transcription: Select nice, fat chicken, butter the baking pan, cut chicken in small pieces, pepper, salt, butter & flour each piece thoroughly.  Cover with boiling hot water, cut in celery if desired, bake in slow oven and serve with hot baking powder biscuits.

Does this recipe need some tweaking?  I say, yes it does.

Here are some sites for chicken fricassee I found online that sound much more tasty.

http://www.marthastewart.com/925889/chicken-fricassee-fricassee-de-poulet-lancienne

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ingrid-hoffmann/grandma-titas-chicken-fricassee-recipe.html

http://blogcritics.org/julia-childs-chicken-fricassee-fricassee-de/

Well, there it is.  Today’s family recipe, brought to you by my maternal grandmother.  I will say, that of my two grandmothers, my paternal grandmother, Marie Lindsay Gould, was the better cook.  I sure wish I had her recipe book.  I can still taste her custard pudding.  

However, I cherish this notebook from my maternal grandmother.  There are many more recipes, both food and non-food, in this journal.  I will continue to share them with you as the weeks go by.  I find the recipes for complexion cream and how to make shampoo and other things like that, the most interesting.

Here are the previous posts from this series:

How to make complexion cream - http://www.michiganfamilytrails.com/2013/10/family-recipe-friday-my-grandmother_4.html

How to make shampoo - http://www.michiganfamilytrails.com/2013/11/family-recipe-friday-how-to-make-shampoo.html

How to make chocolate fudge - http://www.michiganfamilytrails.com/2013/11/family-recipe-friday.html

How to keep hair curled back in 1906 - http://www.michiganfamilytrails.com/2013/11/family-recipe-friday-how-to-keep-hair.html

Please, share your family recipes with me.  I’d love to read them.

Happy cooking,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2014   Diane Gould Hall