1 teaspoonful of baking-powder.
1/2 gill of cold water.
Use any kind of cooked unsalted meat, and have it free from skin, bones, and fat. Put it in a stewpan. Put the vegetables and butter in a frying-pan, and cook for ten minutes. At the end of that time take the vegetables from the butter and put them with the meat. Into the butter remaining in the pan put half a tablespoonful of flour, and stir until smooth and frothy. Gradually add the stock or water, and stir until the sauce boils. Add this to the meat and vegetables, and place the saucepan on the fire. Mix the remaining tablespoonful of flour with four tablespoonfuls of cold water, and stir into the meat mixture. Add the seasonings, and cook for fifteen minutes. Turn this into a dish that will hold nearly two quarts, and set away to cool.
Now make the crust. Mix the salt, sugar, and baking-powder with the flour, and then rub through a sieve into a bowl. Add the butter and lard, and cut and mix through the flour, with a knife, until quite fine. Wet with the cold water, stirring all the time with the knife. Sprinkle the board lightly with flour, and turn out the paste upon it. Roll very thin; then fold and roll again into a thin sheet. Fold up, put in a tin pan, and set on the ice for an hour or more; or it may be used at once. Roll the paste into the shape of the top of the dish in which the pie is to be baked, only about an inch larger on all sides. Cut a small slit in the centre of the paste that the steam may escape. Cover the prepared meat with this paste, turning in the edges. Bake the pie in a moderate oven for one hour.
The bones and bits of gristle may be boiled in water to make a stock.
How to Clean and Truss Poultry.
Cut off the head, and then the legs, being careful in the latter case to cut in or below the joints. Now cut the skin on the back of the neck; then turn the skin over on the breast and cut off the neck. Take out the crop, being particular to remove all the lining membrane. Put the forefinger into the throat and break the ligaments that hold the internal organs to the breastbone. Next cut the bird open at the vent, beginning under the left leg, and cutting in a slanting direction toward the vent. Stop there. Insert the hand in this opening, and work around the organs until they are loosened from the bones. Gently draw all the organs out at once. Put the hand in to learn if either the windpipe or lights are left in the body. Cut the oil bag from the tail. This is a hard, yellow substance. Now singe the bird by holding it over a lighted newspaper. The paper should be drawn into a long, fluffy piece, then twisted lightly. Hold the burning paper over an open fire or a coal hod during the operation of singeing.
Wash the poultry quickly in cold water; then season it with salt, and fill the crop and breast with dressing. Draw the skin at the neck on to the back, and fasten it with a skewer to the backbone. Turn the tips of the wings under the back, and fasten them in that position with a long skewer. Pass a short skewer through the lower part of the legs, and then through the tail. Tie with long piece of twine. Turn the bird on its breast and bring the string up around the skewers that hold the neck and wings. Tie firmly, and the bird will be ready for cooking.
Boiled Fowl.
A boiled fowl is one of the most satisfactory and economical dishes of poultry. The meat can be used in making a great variety of dishes, and the water in which the fowl was boiled may be used in soups, or for the foundation of meat, fish, and vegetable sauces.