Boil enough water to well cover the fowl, add salt, pepper and mace. Rub
the fowl with the lemon-juice, put it into the saucepan. Boil gently 1½
hour. Serve with lemon sauce (see page 39), and if liked, garnish with
slices of tongue, smoked beef, or worsht.
Chicken Broth.
Cut up an old fowl, cover with water, and stew it with 2 onions till it
goes to pieces. Season with pepper and salt, skim well, strain, and
serve very hot with sippets of toast.
Chickens’ necks stewed in the same way make very good broth.
To Roast a Chicken. Time—1 hour.
1 fowl (smoked beef fat). _Stuffing_: 1 tablespoonful chopped suet, 1
tablespoonful bread-crumbs, ½ tablespoonful chopped parsley, ½
tablespoonful chopped herbs, grated nutmeg, pepper and salt to taste,
grated lemon-rind, 1 egg.
Dry the fowl well; prepare the stuffing as below, put it in at the
breast, and sew or skewer it up. (If liked, lard the fowl with the
smoked beef fat.) Rub with a little pepper and salt, dredge lightly with
flour, and leave a little while. Then put a piece of greased paper over
the breast, and put down to roast. Remove the paper ¼ hour before the
fowl is done.
_For the stuffing_: Chop the suet and parsley fine, add to them the
bread-crumbs, herbs, pepper, and salt, nutmeg, lemon-rind, and lastly
the egg, well beaten. Mix all well together.
Cornflour Blanc-mange. Time—20 minutes.
2 tablespoonfuls cornflour, 1 pint milk, 1 tablespoonful loaf sugar,
stick cinnamon.
Put the sugar, cinnamon, and nearly all the milk, in a saucepan to boil.
Meanwhile mix the cornflour in a basin to a smooth paste, with the
remainder of the milk. When the milk boils, add to it the cornflour,
return all to the saucepan, and boil quickly 3 minutes, stirring all the
time. Dip a mould in cold water, pour in the cornflour after the
cinnamon has been taken out. When cold turn out, and serve with jam.
Gruel. Time—¾ hour.
2 dessertspoonfuls oatmeal (fine or Scotch), 2 tablespoonfuls milk, ½
saltspoonful salt, 3 gills boiling water.
Mix the oatmeal and salt to a smooth paste with the milk. When the water
boils add it gradually, stirring all the time. Let it stand ½ minute,
then pour it into the saucepan, letting the grits remain in the basin.
Stir the gruel till it boils, then simmer 10 minutes more if fine, ½
hour more if Scotch oatmeal. Sweeten to taste.
Lait de Poule. Time—10 minutes.
1 gill boiling water, ¾ wineglassful sherry, 1 egg, (nutmeg if liked),
sugar.
Beat up the egg, pour the nearly boiling water over it, add the sherry
and nutmeg, and sweeten. This drink is very good for a cold, when no
milk is handy.
Lemonade.