Clean the chicken, and stuff the breast and part of the body with dressing made as follows: For a pair of chickens weighing between seven and eight pounds, take one quart of stale bread (being sure not to have any hard pieces), and break up in very fine crumbs. Add a table-spoonful of salt, a scant teaspoonful of pepper, a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, half a teaspoonful of powdered sage, one of summer savory and a scant half cupful of butter. Mix well together. This gives a rich dressing that will separate like rice when served. Now truss the chickens, and dredge well with salt. Take soft butter in the hand, and rub thickly over the chicken; then dredge rather thickly with flour. Place on the side, on the meat rack, and put into a hot oven for a few moments, that the flour in the bottom of the pan may brown. When it is browned, put in water enough to cover the pan. Baste every fifteen minutes with the gravy in the pan, and dredge with salt, pepper and flour. When one side is browned, turn, and brown the other. The last position in which the chicken should bake is on its back, that the breast may be nicely frothed and browned. The last basting is on the breast, and should be done with soft butter, and the breast should be dredged with flour. Putting the butter on the chicken at first, and then covering with flour, makes a paste, which keeps the juices in the chicken, and also supplies a certain amount of rich basting that is absorbed into the meat. It really does not take as much butter to baste poultry or game in this manner as by the old method of putting it on with a spoon after the bird began to cook. The water in the pan must often be renewed; and always be careful not to get in too much at a time. It will take an hour and a quarter to cook a pair of chickens, each weighing between three and a half and four pounds; anything larger, an hour and a half. A sure sign that they are done is the readiness of joints to separate from the body. If the chickens are roasted in the tin-kitchen, before the fire, it will take a quarter of an hour longer than in the oven. Gravy for chickens: Wash the hearts, livers, gizzards and necks and put on to boil in three pints of water; boil down to one pint. Take them all up. Put the liver on a plate, and mash fine with the back of the spoon; return it to the water in which it was boiled. Mix two table-spoonfuls of flour with half a cupful of cold water. Stir into the gravy, season well with salt and pepper, and set back where it will simmer, for twenty minutes. Take up the chickens, and take the meat rack out of the pan. Then tip the pan to one side, to bring all the gravy together. Skim off the fat. Place the pan on top of the stove and turn into it one cupful of water. Let this boil up, in the meantime scraping everything from the sides and bottom of the pan. Turn this into the made gravy, and let it all boil together while you are removing the skewers and strings from the chickens.
4 hard-boiled eggs 2 tablespoonfuls of butter 2 level tablespoonfuls of flour 1/2 pint of milk 1 cupful of finely chopped cold cooked chicken or fish 1 teaspoonful of salt 1 saltspoonful of pepper
Chop the eggs rather fine. Rub the butter and flour together, add the milk, stir until boiling, add the salt and pepper. Put a layer of eggs in the bottom of a casserole, or baking dish, then a layer of the fish or chicken, then a little white sauce, and so continue until the ingredients are used. Dust the top thickly with bread crumbs and bake in a moderate oven until nicely browned.
Make chicken soup with an old hen. Remove chicken from soup just as soon as tender. Place in roasting-pan with three tablespoons of chicken-fat, one onion sliced, one clove of garlic, one-half teaspoon each of salt and paprika. Sprinkle with soft bread crumbs. Baste frequently and when sufficiently browned, cut in pieces for serving. Place on platter with the strained gravy pour over the chicken and serve.
Take one-quarter pound chicken livers that have been boiled soft; drain and rub through grater, add one-quarter cup of fresh mushrooms that have been fried for three minutes in two tablespoons of chicken fat, chop these, mix smooth with the liver, moistening with the fat used in frying the mushrooms, season with salt, pepper, paprika and a little onion and lemon juice. Spread on rye bread slices. Garnish plate with a red radish or sprigs of parsley.
Take your Pigeons (if they be not very young) cut them into four quarters, one sweet-bread sliced the long way, that it may be thin, and the pieces not too big, one Sheeps tongue, little more then parboyl'd, and the skin puld off, and the tongue cut in slices, two or three slices of Veale, as much of Mutton, young chicken (if not little) quarter them, Chick-heads, Lark, or any such like, Pullets, Coxcombs, Oysters, Calves-Udder cut in pieces, good store of Marrow for seasoning, take as much Pepper and Salt as you think fit to season it slightly; good store of sweet Marjoram, a little Time and Lemon-Pill fine sliced; season it well with these Spices as the time of the year will afford; put in either of Chesnuts (if you put in Chesnuts they must first be either boyl'd or roasted) Gooseberries or Guage, large Mace will do well in this Pye, then take a little piece of Veale parboyl'd and slice it very fine, as much Marrow as meat stirred amongst it, then take grated Bread, as much as a quarter of the meat, four yolks of Eggs or more according to the stuffe you make, shred Dates as small as may be, season it with salt, but not too salt. Nutmeg as much as will season it, sweet Marjoram pretty store very small shred, work it up with as much sweet Creame as will make it up in little Puddings, some long, some round, so put as many of them in the Pye as you please; put therein two or three spoonfulls of Gravy of Mutton, or so much strong Mutton broth before you put it in the Oven, the bottome of boyled Artichokes, minced Marrow over and in the bottom of the Pye after your Pye is baked; when you put it up, have some five yolks of Eggs minced, and the juyce of two or three Oranges, the meat of one Lemon cut in pieces, a little White and Claret Wine; put this in your Pye being well mingled, and shake it very well together.
Melt butter in saucepan; add flour and add cold milk slowly, stirring until smooth and creamy; add seasoning and parsley. Boil 3 minutes. Add chicken; mix well and pour out on platter to cool. When cool enough to handle take a large spoon of the mixture in floured hands; shape into balls, cones, or oval cakes and put into cold place until firm. Roll in bread crumbs, then dip in eggs beaten with 2 tablespoons milk, then in bread crumbs. Lay on plate which has been sprinkled with bread crumbs. Fry in deep hot fat until brown. Drain and serve.
Use only the breast of the chicken. Make the same as veal force-meat, using cream, however, with the bread crumbs, instead of milk. This force-meat is for the most delicate entries only. Either the chicken or veal can be formed into balls about the size of a walnut and fried or poached for soups.
Cut it up as for fricassee and see that every piece is wiped dry. Have ready heated in a spider some goose-fat or other poultry drippings. Season each piece of chicken with salt and ground ginger, or pepper. Roll each piece of chicken in sifted cracker or bread crumbs (which you have previously seasoned with salt). Fry in the spider, turning often, and browning evenly. You may cut up some parsley and add while frying. If the chicken is quite large, it is better to steam it before frying.
Having put your clams into a pot of boiling water to make them open easily, take them from the shells, carefully saving the liquor. To the liquor of a quart of opened clams, allow three quarts of water. Mix the water with the liquor of the clams and put it into a large pot with a knuckle of veal, the bone of which should be chopped in four places. When it has simmered slowly for four hours, put in a large bunch of sweet herbs, a beaten nutmeg, a tea-spoonful of mace, and a table-spoonful of whole pepper, but no salt, as the salt of the clam liquor will be sufficient. Stew it slowly an hour longer, and then strain it. When you have returned the liquor to the pot, add a quarter of a pound of butter divided into four and each bit rolled in flour. Then put in the clams, (having cut them, in pieces,) and let it boil fifteen minutes. Send it to table with toasted bread in it cut into dice. This soup will be greatly improved by the addition of small force-meat balls. Make them of cold minced veal or chicken, mixed with equal quantities of chopped suet and sweet marjoram, and a smaller proportion of hard-boiled egg, grated lemon-peel, and powdered nutmeg. Pound all the ingredients together in a mortar, adding a little pepper and salt. Break in a raw egg or two (in proportion to the quantity) to bind the whole together and prevent it from crumbling to pieces. When thoroughly mixed, make the force-meat into small balls, and let them boil ten minutes in the soup, shortly before you send it to table. If you are obliged to make them of raw veal or raw chicken they must boil longer. It will be a great improvement to cut up a yam and boil it in the soup. Oyster soup may be made in this manner.
