Cut also about as much table celery as chicken, which put with the meat also. Season with salt, pepper, vinegar, and very little oil; stir and mix the whole well. Add also some lettuce, and mix again gently. Put the mixture then on a platter, making a small mound with it; spread a Mayonnaise-sauce all over it; decorate with hard-boiled eggs, cut in four or eight pieces, lengthwise; also with centre leaves of lettuce, capers, boiled beets, and even slices of lemon.
A bard-boiled egg is cut across in two, then with a sharp knife scallop each half, invert them and run a small skewer through both, so as to leave the smaller end of both halves in the middle and touching; place the egg right in the middle of the dish, when the Mayonnaise is spread all over; plant the centre leaves of a head of lettuce in the middle of the upper half of the egg, with a few capers in it, and serve.
Some use mustard with a chicken salad; it is really wrong, because chickens and Mayonnaise-sauce are too delicate to use mustard with them.
CAPON.
A caponed chicken is cleaned, prepared, cooked, and served in the same and every way as a common chicken.
A capon is almost always fat, larger than an ordinary chicken, and has a more delicate and tender flesh.
Roasted and served in the different ways described for chicken, it makes a recherché dish, also when stuffed with chestnuts or truffles, as a common chicken.
Boiled.—Clean and prepare as directed above; rub the fleshy part with lemon, envelop it with slices of bacon, place it in a stewpan with one sprig of parsley, one of thyme, a bay-leaf, one clove, a small carrot, two onions, salt, and pepper; cover with half water and half broth, and set on a moderate fire. When cooked, take the capon off, place it on a dish, and set it in a warm place; then boil the sauce till it is rather thick, when strain it on the capon, and serve.
The same, with Rice.—When cleaned and prepared as above, you place the capon in a stewpan, cover it with water, add one glass of broth, a bay-leaf, one clove, a sprig of parsley, one of thyme, a small carrot, two onions, salt, and pepper; boil ten minutes, then add also about four ounces of rice, soaked in lukewarm water before using it, and let simmer for two hours. Take the capon off, and in case the rice should not be found to be cooked enough, finish the cooking of it; then take off clove, parsley, thyme, bay-leaf, carrot and onions, pour the remainder on the capon, and serve.