draw a chicken

[Sue Leurgans]

There is a reciept for chicken pie which says: "Choose three spring chickens, taking care that they are tender, and not too large; draw them,....Lay then in a pie-dish with the breast upwards....Pour a pint of good gravy into the dish, cover it with a rich puff paste,...."

Hm?? By definition, draw a chicken, is removing the guts. What about the bones? Trying to picture 3 whole chickens in a pie pan.   

1) is deboning assumed? If so why mention gut removal?

2) are the chickens so small that they will fit in a pie dish or is the pie dish larger than I'm aware of.

3) Something else?  Cutting a pie with bones is a bit dicey, much less eating a piece.

4) a reciept with possibilities, but needs much tweaking?

The reciept sounds tasty if the chicken was parboiled and deboned as it has mushrooms, hard boiled egg, bacon and seasoning.

[Karen M]

Possibly "draw" refers to cutting it into pieces.  I have read several books where chicken pie was mentioned, as in being so tender the meat was slipping from the bones.  But it did seem like the chicken was put into the pan in pieces.  As for 3 chickens being a lot, people were cooking for larger groups than what we do today.

Hope it turns out yummy!!

Karen

[Elizabeth]

Spring chickens would still be fairly small, though... think of culling excess roosters when they start exhibiting rooster tendencies. And, while we think of de-boning as an essential part of making a meat pie, leaving bones in helps with gravy formation (the gelatin comes out of the bones while it cooks). Also, consider *spooning* up a pie, rather than cutting slices (think, pot-pie)... you can get a whole boned piece, and the meat falls off, so you're left with meat, filling, gravy, crust, and a bone to set aside pretty easily.

[Sue Leurgans]

I was thinking cornish game hen size.

Now I see this reciept calls for more than a pie pan, it needs a ceramic dish, more like a casserole dish.  That makes much more sense.
Thanks. 

[Beth Chamberlain]

We have bred our poultry to be very big. Even just 20 years ago a roaster was @ 3lbs, now I can rarely find one under 5. When mid century cookbooks do mention weights what I have seen mostly are no more than a pound and a half, some recipts mention "a chicken no more than a pound". 

Beth