Singe, wash and clean chicken; cut into pieces as follows; two second joints, two drumsticks, two wings, breast cut into two pieces, backbone cut into four pieces. Wipe with piece of cheesecloth; season with salt and pepper and dredge in flour. Put into hot frying pan with 2 tablespoons bacon drippings or butter and brown quickly. Add a little water, cover, reduce heat and cook slowly until tender. Remove chicken; mix 1 tablespoon flour with whatever gravy or fat is in pan; add 1 cup cold milk; boil until thick. This gravy should be rich cream color.
Hard-boil twelve eggs. Remove the shells. Cut the eggs into halves, crosswise. Take out the yolks without breaking the whites. Press the yolks through a sieve. Add four tablespoonfuls of finely chopped chicken, tongue or ham. Add a half teaspoonful of salt, a saltspoonful of pepper and two tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Rub the mixture. Form it into balls the size of the yolks and put them into the places in the whites from which the yolks were taken. Put two halves together, roll them in tissue paper that has been fringed at the ends, giving each a twist. If these balls are made the size of the yolk, and put back into the whites, they may be placed on a platter, heated, and served on toast, with cream sauce; then they are very much like the eggs Bernhardt.
One solid pint of finely-chopped cooked chicken, one table- spoonful of salt, half a teaspoonful of pepper, one cupful of cream or chicken stock, one table-spoonful of flour, four eggs, one teaspoonful of onion juice, one table-spoonful of lemon juice, one pint of crumbs, three table-spoonfuls of butter. Put the cream or stock on to boil. Mix the flour and butter together, and stir into the boiling cream; then add the chicken and seasoning. Boil for two minutes, and add two of the eggs, well beaten. Take from the fire immediately, and set away to cool. When cold, shape and fry. Many people think a teaspoonful of chopped parsley an improvement,
Take one pint of cold chicken, duck or any poultry. Cut it into flakes and place it in a pudding dish which has been lined with a thin crust. On the layer of meat place a layer of sweet red peppers (seeds removed), cut in slices; next, a layer of thinly sliced sausage, and so on until the dish is full. Over this pour a glass of claret into which have been rubbed two tablespoons of flour. Cover with a thin crust of pastry, and bake.
Chop sufficient cold chicken to make a half cupful, add an equal quantity of finely-chopped mushrooms, add this to a half pint of cream sauce. Add one unbeaten egg to a pint of cold boiled rice, season it with salt and pepper, make into round, flat cakes, and fry in hot fat. Arrange these on a heated platter, pour over the cream sauce mixture, and put on top of each a poached egg.
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.
Cut up two young chickens into good-sized pieces; put them in a saucepan with just enough water to cover them well. When boiled quite tender, season with salt and pepper; let them simmer ten or fifteen minutes longer; then take the chicken from the broth and remove all the large bones. Place the meat in a well-buttered pudding dish, season again, if necessary, adding a few bits of butter. Pour over this the following batter:-- Eight eggs beaten light and mixed with one quart of milk, three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, a teaspoonful of salt and two large teaspoonfuls of baking powder, added to enough sifted flour to make a batter like griddle-cakes. Bake one hour in a moderate oven. Make a gravy of the broth that remained from the cooking of the chicken, adding a tablespoonful of flour stirred into a third of a cup of melted butter; let it boil up, putting in more water if necessary. Serve hot in a gravy boat with the pudding.
Roll a lump of butter in flour, put it in a pan on the fire, and as it melts add pepper and salt. Stir it, and as it thickens add a little milk; let it simmer and keep on stirring it. You will never get a good white sauce unless you season it well and let it simmer for a quarter of an hour. Strain it, heat it again, and serve it for fish, potatoes, chicken.
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.
For shortening; use drippings and mix with goose, duck or chicken fat. In the fall and winter, when poultry is plentiful and fat, save all drippings of poultry fat for pie-crust. If you have neither, use rendered beef fat. Take one-half cup of shortening, one and one-half cups of flour. Sifted pastry flour is best. If you have none at hand take two tablespoons of flour off each cup after sifting; add a pinch of salt. With two knives cut the fat into the sifted flour until the shortening is in pieces as small as peas. Then pour in six or eight tablespoons of cold water; in summer use ice-water; work with the knife until well mixed (never use the hand). Flour a board or marble slab, roll the dough out thin, sprinkle with a little flour and put dabs of soft drippings here and there, fold the dough over and roll out thin again and spread with fat and sprinkle with flour, repeat this and then roll out not too thin and line a pie-plate with this dough. Always cut dough for lower crust a little larger than the upper dough and do not stretch the dough when lining pie-pan or plate. If fruit is to be used for the filling, brush over top of the dough with white of egg slightly beaten, or sprinkle with one tablespoon of bread crumbs to prevent the dough from becoming soggy. Put in the filling, brush over the edge of pastry with cold water, lay the second round of paste loosely over the filling; press the edges together lightly, and trim, if needed. Cut several slits in the top crust or prick it with a fork before putting it in place. Bake from thirty-five to forty-five minutes until crust is a nice brown. A gas stove is more satisfactory for baking pies than a coal stove as pies require the greatest heat at the bottom. The recipe given above makes two crusts. Bake pies having a cooked filling in a quick oven and those with an uncooked filling in a moderate oven. Let pies cool upon plates on which they were made because slipping them onto cold plates develops moisture which always destroys the crispness of the lower crust.
