Boil them forty minutes in water enough barely to cover them. Take off the scum as fast as it rises. Take them up and carve them in the usual way. Put part of the water in which they were boiled into a spider or stew-pan. For two chickens rub a piece of butter as large as an egg, and a spoonful of flour together, and stir into the water as it boils up. Add some salt, and a gill of cream, or milk. Lay in the pieces of chicken, cover the pan close, and stew them gently eight or ten minutes. Parsley cut fine is a decided improvement.
Chicken Salad.
Boil or roast a nice fowl. When cold, cut off all the meat, and chop it a little, but not very small; cut up a large bunch of celery and mix with the chicken. Boil four eggs hard, mash, and mix them with sweet oil, pepper, salt, mustard, and a gill of vinegar. Beat this mixture very thoroughly together, and just before dinner pour it over the chicken.
Chicken Pie.
Boil chickens in water barely to cover them, forty minutes. Skim the water carefully. Take them out into a dish, and cut them up as they should be carved if placed upon the table. If the skin is very thick remove it. Have ready, lined with a thick paste, a deep dish, of a size proportioned to the number of chickens you wish to use; put in the pieces, with the hearts and livers, in layers; sprinkle each layer with flour, salt, and pepper, and put on each piece of chicken a thin shaving of butter; do this till you have laid in all the pieces; put rather more of the spice, flour, and butter over the top layer than on the previous ones, and pour in as much of the liquor in which the chickens were boiled as you can without danger of its boiling over. Lay on the upper crust, and close the edges very carefully with flour and water; prick the top with a knife. Cut leaves of crust and ornament it. Bake two hours. The crust for chicken pie should be twice as thick as for fruit pies. Use mace and nutmeg if you wish.
To Roast Ducks.
Flour them thick and baste them often. If they are roasted before the fire, an hour is long enough; if in a stove, an hour and a half. For making the [stuffing] and [gravy], see the directions.
To Boil Ducks.
Scald and lay them in warm water a few minutes, then lay them in a dish, pour boiling milk over them, and let them lie in it two or three hours. Then take them out, dredge them with flour, and put them into a saucepan of cold water, cover close and boil them twenty minutes. Then take them out and set them, covered, where they will keep warm, and make the sauce as follows:—