Chickens à la Française.
Boil, and then blanch a sweetbread by dropping it into cold water. Then chop, mix with the pounded boiled livers of the chickens, and one-sixth as much bread-crumbs as you have meat. Season. Have ready, cleaned and washed, a pair of nice chickens. Fill with this force-meat. Cover the breasts and sides with thin slices of fat salt pork; put into a dripping-pan; pour about them a large cupful of boiling water, and roast—basting often—one hour. Take off the pork; lay it in the gravy, and dredge the fowls with flour. As this browns, baste well, with butter once, three times with gravy. Take up and keep hot while you strain; cool, skim and thicken the gravy. Have ready cooked a cup of rice measured when raw—which has been boiled in the water used for cooking the sweetbread and livers, then seasoned. Make a broad, flat-topped mound of it upon a dish; lay the chickens on it, and pour a little of the gravy over them. Serve the rest in a boat.