Peers’ Baked Chicken Dinner – Simple Holiday Meals

Here’s a traditional baked chicken dinner to keep this year’s holiday celebrations small and simple without giving up the nostalgia and taste. Florence Peers’ Baked Chicken Dinner has all the goodies of a holiday meal: baked chicken, dressing, dumplings and gravy. FFA has pleased many a palate over the years with this dinner.

These are Florence Ethel Anderson Peers’ (b. 1888, d. 1941) recipes. She ran Peers’ Poultry House, along with her husband Charlie and their six sons. It was located across from Churchill Downs, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Peers’ Poultry was known for the best fresh poultry and the freshest eggs in town. If you wanted to choose your bird personally, you could go to their warehouse, make your selection and wait 10 minutes for it to be killed, scalded and cleaned. On cold days you could warm yourself by standing near the pot-bellied stove in the center of the building. And the Peers boys delivered anywhere in Louisville during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. They would be busy this time of year, out making deliveries of turkeys, chickens, “springers” (I assume these are the game birds the spaniels brought in), ducks and geese long past midnight.

These recipes all fit neatly together: By the time the gravy is ready, the hen, dressing and dumplings should be done. Florence always served this chicken with mashed potatoes, slaw, green beans, fresh tomatoes and other vegetables in season. Dessert was usually cake and ice cream or strawberry shortcake. Although at the holidays you might prefer a pumpkin or sweet potato pie with whipped cream! Here are the recipes…

Peers’ Baked Chicken Dinner

Baked Chicken

Serves four; Preparation time: 5 mins; Cooking time: 1 1/2 hrs.

Ingredients

• One large, fat hen and giblets
• 1 small onion or small piece of onion
• 3 ribs celery
• 1 pinch thyme
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Pre-Cook Chicken: Carefully wash the hen, giblets, eggs and place all in a large kettle or Dutch oven and cover with water. Add the celery ribs, several grinds of pepper, a teaspoon of salt, onion and thyme. Place on medium heat and lightly simmer until tender. (Boiling will cause the skin to break.)
2. Remove hen from broth and place in a baking pan. Save and measure the broth for the dressing, dumplings and gravy, approximately one third for each (less for stuffing).

Dressing

Serves 8; Preparation time: 20 minutes; baking time 45 minutes

• 1 loaf of bread, toasted and crumbled
• 1 eggs, beaten
• 1 medium-sized onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon rubbed sage
• 2 ribs celery chopped, and the remains of the cooked celery from broth
• A cup of the chicken broth (above)

1. Mix all ingredients except broth. To 1/2 cup of broth add an equal amount of water. Pour the broth mixture into crumb mixture and mix well. Place by spoonfuls in the hen and around it in the pan.
2. Bake the Chicken: Place hen in a 350 degree oven and bake approximately 45 minutes. While the hen is baking make the dumplings.
3. You can baste the hen every 15 minutes to achieve an nice, browned skin.

Dumplings

I do not usually make dumplings but this is a good recipe for them.

Serves 8; Preparation time: 10 minutes; cook time 20 minutes

• 1/3 the chicken broth (above)
• 3 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons salt

1. Using the same large kettle you used to simmer the chicken, put the broth in with an equal amount of water and bring to a boil.
2. Combine flour and salt in a large mixing bowl and add cold water a little at a time to make a thick, heavy dough. Work dough with floured hands until it is not sticky.
3. On a floured surface, roll to about 1/8 inch thickness. Cut in strips 1 inch wide and 3 inches long. Drop dumplings, one at a time, into the boiling liquid. Stir occasionally. When all the dumplings are in, reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Giblet Gravy

Makes several cups of gravy; Preparation time: 5 minutes

• 1/3 of the chicken broth (above)
• Cooked giblets, if you have them (above)
• 4 tablespoons flour
• 1 cup cold water
• Optional: 3 hardboiled eggs (and any eggs and egg bag from the hen)

1. Chop giblets and add to the broth. Bring to a boil.
2. Mix flour and water. When broth mixture is boiling add the flour and water mixture until desired consistency is reached. Let cook about 3 minutes longer. Remove from the heat and add the sliced or quartered hard boiled eggs. (I omitted the eggs.)

Here is a recipe for cranberry sauce from our friends at TheKitchn.com