This receipt, and the following, were accidentally omitted in their proper places.
CHICKEN PIE.—
Skin a pair of fine fowls, and cut them up. Save out the necks, backs, feet, livers, and gizzards, and the ends of the pinions; and seasoning them with a little pepper and salt add some trimmings or spare bits of fresh beef or veal, and stew them in a small sauce-pan with a little water, to make the gravy. Let them stew till all to rags, and then strain off the liquid; and while hot, stir into it a beaten egg and a bit of fresh butter, dredged with flour. In the mean time make a nice puff-paste, and roll it out rather thick; divide it in two circular sheets. Line with one sheet the bottom and sides of a deep pie dish, and put in the best pieces of chicken. Lay among them four hard-boiled eggs, sliced or quartered. Season well with powdered mace or nutmeg. The gravy being strained, pour that into the pie, and finish at the top with a layer of butter divided into small pieces, and dredge with flour. This is what the old English cookery books mean when they say—"Close the pie with a lear."
A chicken pie will be improved by the addition of a dozen or more large fresh oysters, stewed. If you add oysters, take off the lid or upper crust as soon as the pie is baked, and put in the oysters then; if put in at the beginning, they will bake too long. Replace the lid nicely, and send the pie to table hot.
The lid should have in the top a cross slit with a nice paste flower in it. To make a paste flower roll out a straight narrow slip of paste, about four or five inches wide. Roll it up with your fingers as if you were rolling up a ribbon. Then with a sharp knife cut four clefts in the upper half, and when baked, it will spread apart as like the leaves of a flower.
SWEETMEATS.
No sweetmeats can either look well or taste well unless the fruit and the sugar are of the best quality. As in all other branches of cookery, it is false economy to provide bad or low-priced ingredients. It has of late years been difficult to obtain very good sugar at any price, so much is adulterated with flour or ground starch. In the common powdered sugar the flour is so palpable that we are surprised at its having any sale at all; and the large quantity required to produce any perceptible sweetness renders it totally unfit for sweetmeats, or indeed for any thing else. The best brown sugar is better than this, having clarified it with white of egg. To do this, allow to every pound of sugar the beaten white of an egg, and a half pint of clear cold water. Having poured the water on the sugar, let it stand to melt before it goes on the fire. Then add the white of egg and put in on to boil. When it boils, carefully take off the scum as it rises, and add when it is boiling hard another jill or quarter pint of water for each pound of sugar. Remove it from the fire when the scum ceases to rise, and let it stand for a quarter of an hour to settle. Strain, and bottle it for use. The best brown sugar thus prepared will make a good syrup; and good marmalade, when white sugar of the best quality is not to be obtained. But for the nicest sweetmeats use always, if you can, the best double-refined loaf.
In warm weather there is nothing better for a preserving fire than a portable charcoal furnace placed out in the open air; as in a room with the doors or windows shut the vapor of charcoal is deadly, and never fails to produce suffocation. Of whatever the fire is made, it should be clear and steady without smoke or blaze. Never use copper or bell-metal for either preserving or pickling. For all such purposes employ only iron, lined with what is called porcelain or enamel, but is in reality a thick strong white earthen, first made at Delft, in Holland. This lining will crack if the kettle is placed over a blaze, which it should never be. All sweetmeats should be boiled with the lid off. If covered, the steam having no means of escaping, returns upon them, and causes them to look dark and unsightly. When done, put the sweetmeats warm into jars or glasses, and leave them open a few hours that the watery particles may evaporate, but have them all pasted and closely covered before night. Do nothing to render your preserves hard, or firm, as it is called. It is better to have them soft and tender. The old custom of steeping them for days in salt and water, and then boiling them in something else to remove the salt, is now considered foolish, and is seldom practised.