The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory Part 36

_Chicken and Ham, ragout of._

Clear a chicken which has been dressed of all the sauce that may be about it. If it has been roasted, pare off the brown skin, take some soup, veal jelly, and cream, and a table-spoonful of mushrooms; if pickled, wash them in several waters to take out the vinegar: put them in the jelly, and keep this sauce to heat up. Cut up the chicken, the wings and breast in slices, the merrythought also, and divide the legs.

Heat the fowl up separately from the sauce in a little thin broth: prepare six or eight slices of ham stewed apart in brown gravy; dip each piece of the fowl in the white sauce, and lay them in the middle of the dish with a piece of the ham alternately one beside another, taking care that as little of the white sauce as possible goes on the ham, to preserve its colour. Lay the legs one on each side of the meat in the middle; and pour the sauce in the middle, taking care not to pour it over the ham.

_Chicken, or Ham and Veal pates._

Cut up into small dice some of the white of the chicken, or the most delicate part of veal already dressed; take sufficient white sauce, with truffles, morels, and mushrooms, and heat it up to put in the pates.

When ready, pour it amply into them, and serve up hot.

_Another._

Take the white of a chicken or veal, cut it up in small dice; do the same with some ham or tongue; warm it in a little broth, and take a good white sauce, such as is used for pheasants, and heat it up thoroughly.

_Duck, to boil._

Pour over it boiling milk and water, and let it lie for an hour or two.

Then boil it gently for a full half hour in plenty of water. Serve with onion sauce.

_Duck, to boil, a la Francaise._

To a pint of rich beef gravy put two dozen of roasted peeled chesnuts, with a few leaves of thyme, two small onions if agreeable, a race of ginger, and a little whole pepper. Lard a fine tame duck, and half roast it; put it into the gravy; let it stew ten minutes, and add a pint of port wine. When the duck is done, take it out; boil up your gravy to a proper thickness, but skim it very clean from the fat; lay your duck in the dish, and pour the sauce over it.

_Duck a la braise._

Lard the duck; lay a slice or two of beef at the bottom of the pan, and on these the duck, a piece of bacon, and some more beef sliced, an onion, a carrot, whole pepper, a slice of lemon, and a bunch of sweet-herbs. Cover this close, and set it over the fire for a few minutes, shaking in some flour: then pour in a quart of beef broth or boiling water, and a little heated red wine. Stew it for half an hour; strain the sauce, and skim it; put to it some more wine if necessary, with cayenne, shalot, a little mint, juice of a lemon, and chopped tarragon. If agreeable to your taste, add artichoke bottoms boiled and quartered.

_Duck, to hash._

When cut in pieces, flour it; put it into a stewpan with some gravy, a little red wine, shalot chopped, salt and pepper; boil these; put in the duck; toss it up, take out the lemon, and serve with toasted sippets.

_Duck, to stew with Cuc.u.mbers._

Half roast the duck, and stew it as before. Slice some cuc.u.mbers and onions; fry and drain them very dry; put them to the duck, and stew all together.

_Duck, to stew with Peas._

Half roast the duck, put it into some good gravy with a little mint and three or four sage-leaves chopped. Stew this half an hour; thicken the gravy with a little flour; throw in half a pint of green peas boiled, or some celery, in which case omit the mint.

_Fowls, to fatten in a fortnight._

Gather and dry, in proper season, nettle leaves and seed; beat them into powder, and make it into paste with flour, adding a little sweet olive-oil. Make this up into small crams: coop the birds up and feed them with it, giving them water in which barley has been boiled, and they will fatten in the above-mentioned time.

_Fowl, to make tender._

Pour down the throat of the fowl, about an hour before you kill it, a spoonful of vinegar, and let it run about again. When killed, hang it up in the feathers by the legs in a smoky chimney; then pluck and dress it.

This method makes fowls very tender.

_Fowl, to roast with Anchovies._

Put a bit of b.u.t.ter in your stewpan with a little flour; keep stirring this over the fire, but not too hot, till it turns of a good gold colour, and put a little of it into your gravy to thicken it.

_Fowl with Rice, called Pilaw._

Boil a pint of rice in as much water as will cover it. Put in with it some whole black pepper, a little salt, and half a dozen cloves, tied up in a bit of cloth. When the rice is tender take out the cloves and pepper, and stir in a piece of b.u.t.ter. Boil a fowl and a piece of bacon; lay them in a dish, and cover them with the rice. Lay round the dish and upon the rice hard eggs cut in halves and quarters, and onions, first boiled and then fried.

_Fowl, to hash._

Cut the fowl in pieces; put it in some gravy, with a little cream, ketchup, or mushroom-powder, grated lemon-peel, a few oysters and their liquor, and a piece of b.u.t.ter mixed with flour. Keep stirring it till the b.u.t.ter is melted. Lay sippets in the dish.

_Fowl, to stew._

Take a fowl, two onions, two carrots, and two turnips; put one onion into the fowl, and cut all the rest into four pieces each. Add two or three bits of bacon or ham, a bay-leaf, and as much water as will prevent their burning when put into an earthen vessel; cover them up close, and stew them for three hours and a half on a slow fire. Serve up hot or cold.

_Goose, to stuff._

Having well washed your goose, dry it, and rub the inside with pepper and salt. Crumble some bread, but not too fine; take a piece of b.u.t.ter and make it hot; cut a middle-sized onion and stew in the b.u.t.ter. Cut the liver very small, and put that also in the b.u.t.ter for about a minute just to warm, and pour it over the head. It must then be mixed up with an egg and about two spoonfuls of cream, a little nutmeg, ginger, pepper and salt, and a small quant.i.ty of summer savory.

_Another way._

Chop fine two ounces of onions, and an ounce of green sage leaves; add four ounces of bread crumbs, the yolk and white of an egg, a little salt and pepper, and sometimes minced apples.

_Goose's liver, to dress._

When it is drawn, leave the gall sticking to it; lay it in fresh water for a day, and change the water several times. When you use it, wipe it dry, cut off the gall, and fry it in b.u.t.ter, which must be made very hot before the liver is put in: it must be whole and fried brown--no fork stuck in it. Serve with a little ketchup sauce.

_Pigeons, to boil._

Chop sweet-herbs and bacon, with grated bread, b.u.t.ter, spice, and the yolk of an egg; tie both ends of the pullets, and boil them. Garnish with sliced lemon and barberries.

_Pigeons, to broil._