Cut an old fowl into joints, splitting the back and dividing the breast into quarters. Put over the fire in plenty of cold water, season with onion juice and the juice of half a lemon. No salt and no pepper. Cover closely and simmer very gently for several hours until you find it tender. Strain off the gravy and season with onion juice, celery salt, a bay-leaf, minced parsley, paprika and salt. Return the gravy to the fire, stir in a lump of butter rolled in browned flour and cook one minute. Arrange the chicken in a deep bake-dish, pour in the gravy, lay over the top two hard-boiled eggs cut into thin slices, cover with a good crust, and bake.
Chicken pot pies
For these have several stoneware or other fire-proof deep dishes, about the size of a bird bath. Cut up a young fowl into joints, cover with cold water and cook tender, but not until the meat leaves the bones. Lay a piece of dark meat and one of light in each dish; sprinkle with minced salt pork, and drop in each dish potato marbles which have been parboiled for ten minutes. Add small cubes of pastry, three to each dish, and two small young onions, no bigger than the end of your thumb. Unless they are mere infants, parboil them five minutes before they go in. Have ready two cupfuls of the liquor in which the chicken was cooked. Thicken with a lump of butter rolled in browned flour; season with paprika and minced parsley. The pork should salt it sufficiently. Fill the dishes, cover each with a good crust, make a slit in the middle and bake, covered with paper, half an hour. Then brown.
You may, if you like, make one dish of this, but many prefer the individual “portions.”
Chicken and ham pie
Cut up and stew the chickens, as in last recipe. Have ready four good-sized slices of corned ham (not smoked), boiled and cold, and cut into strips. Put a layer of ham in the bottom of a buttered bake-dish, season with chopped mushrooms and parsley, salt and pepper, and add a layer of white sauce, the base of which is the liquor in which the chickens were cooked. Next, place in the dish the pieces of chicken in regular order, and upon these the yolks of hard-boiled eggs. Repeat the seasoning and the sauce, lay a few strips of ham over the top, cover with a good paste, wash the pie with beaten egg, and bake for an hour and a half. If you have no mushrooms you may substitute a little mushroom catsup.
Veal pie (No. 1)
Cut three pounds of lean veal into inch-square cubes; put into a saucepan with a cupful of cold water, and heat slowly. Remove the scum as it begins to boil; add two small onions, sliced, two tablespoonfuls of carrot cubes, and one teaspoonful of salt. Let it simmer until very tender. Put the meat then into a deep baking-dish.
Let the liquor boil down to one cupful and a half, strain it and remove most of the fat. Add one-half cupful of cream or of rich milk, and pepper to taste. Thicken it with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed in one of butter; cook it five minutes, and strain it over the meat. If you have any cold boiled ham you may add a little of it to the veal, cutting it into tiny pieces.
Cover with a rich biscuit dough, half an inch thick, and bake one hour, covered with thick paper. Uncover and brown.