Chicken Broth.
Clean, wash, and truss, but do not stuff, a full-grown fowl. Set aside the giblets for another use. Bind the legs and wings of the fowl closely to its sides. Put into a pot with four quarts of water (cold), and cook gently until the liquor has fallen one-third. Then add a full cup of rice, soaked for one hour in a very little water, and boil half an hour more, or until the chicken is tender and the rice soft, but not broken to pieces. Take out the chicken. Wipe off the adhering grains of rice, wash over with butter, salt and pepper, and set, covered, upon a pot of boiling water to keep hot. Season the soup with pepper and salt, and simmer ten minutes more. Then strain out the rice, and cover it to keep hot. Return the soup to the pot, stir in a cup of hot milk, a tablespoonful of corn-starch wet with cold water, and a handful of very finely minced parsley. Boil up, take from the fire, and pour by degrees upon two beaten eggs. Cover for three minutes; then pour into the tureen.
Paté of Salt Cod.
- 1 cup of cold salt cod, soaked all night in soft water, boiled in the morning, left to cool, then “picked” into boneless flakes.
- 1 cup of oyster-liquor.
- 2 even tablespoonfuls of rice flour, or corn starch.
- 3 tablespoonfuls of butter.
- Chopped parsley and pepper.
- 3 hard-boiled eggs, minced.
- Some rich paste. (See “French Puff Paste,” page 352, No. 1, Common Sense Series—General Receipts.)
Boil the oyster-liquor, stir in the corn-starch wet up with cold milk. When it thickens, add the butter and pepper; next the parsley and fish. Heat almost to boiling, and stir in the chopped egg. Take from the fire, and cover, over a pot of boiling water, ten minutes.
Make the shell by lining a profusely buttered cake-mould, or round pan with nearly straight sides, with a thick sheet of puff-paste, pricking it at the bottom to prevent too much puffing. Cut a round piece exactly the size of the top, for a cover, and bake separately. Bake both in a quick oven. Let them get almost cool, turn out the shell with the utmost care; fill slowly with the prepared fish, that the sides may not give way; fit on the top; hold an inverted hot plate firmly upon it and reverse the paté skilfully, leaving the closed side uppermost. It is easily done, if one is only fearless yet dexterous. Eat hot.
Boiled Chicken and Rice.
Boil the giblets tender in a little salted water; chop fine, and when the rice is strained from the soup, mix them well through it. Pile the rice, when you are ready to serve it, upon a meat dish; lay the chicken upon the top; pour a few spoonfuls of egg sauce over it, and send to table.
Egg Sauce.
One cup of the broth in which the chicken was boiled, heated; thickened with a tablespoonful of butter rolled thickly in flour; poured over two beaten eggs; boiled one minute, with a tablespoonful of parsley stirred in; then seasoned and poured upon the pounded yolks of two boiled eggs placed in the bottom of a bowl. Stir up well, and it is ready.