Remove the white meat carefully from two boiled chickens; split the breasts into halves, long ways. Cover the gelatin with a half cupful of cold water to soak for a half hour. Add the seasonings to the stock or bouillon, bring to a boil, add the gelatin, and if not clear, clarify with the white of an egg. Add the juice of a lemon and strain. Take small oblong china or tin molds, garnish the bottoms with fancy bits of good red pepper and chopped truffles, baste over a little of the hot aspic, and let them stand until very cold. Cool the remaining aspic, but do not allow it to become solid. Put on top of each mold a half breast of chicken, dust with salt and pepper, pour over the cold aspic and stand them aside over night. At serving time dip the molds quickly into hot water, turn out the cutlets, dish them on luncheon plates, and garnish with hearts of lettuce. Pass mayonnaise dressing.
This will make eight molds and serve eight persons. Use the dark meat for fricassee or stew of chicken.
TOMATOES à l'ALGERIENNE
The white meat of one chicken
24 perfect tomatoes
1/4 box of gelatin
1/2 pint of chicken stock
1/2 pint of cream
1 teaspoonful of anchovy paste
3 heads of fine lettuce
1/2 pint of mayonnaise
Peel the tomatoes, cut off the stem end and scoop out the hard portion and the seeds; put the tomatoes on the ice. Put the meat of the chicken through the meat grinder, season it with the anchovy paste, if you have it, and salt and pepper. Soak the gelatin in a half cupful of cold water, add the chicken stock, bring to a boil, add a half teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper, and the juice of half a lemon. Mix a part of this with the chicken. Whip the cream, stir it into the chicken mixture, and fill it into the tomatoes, making them smooth on top. When the tomatoes are very cold and the aspic is cool, but not thick, baste just a little over the top, dust thickly with chopped parsley and finely chopped almonds, and stand them in a cold place for several hours. Arrange each tomato in a little nest of lettuce leaves, and pass with them mayonnaise dressing. If these are made well, they are the most sightly of the small cold dishes, and cost almost nothing.
This, of course, will be served to twenty-four persons.
Tongue, sardines, lobster, crab meat or cold left-over meat may be substituted for chicken.
GALANTINE OF CHICKEN
2 chickens
1/2 pound of boiled ham
1/4 pound of larding pork
1 can of mushrooms
2 teaspoonfuls of salt
1 egg
1 pound of lean veal
2 truffles
Salt and pepper
Singe the chickens, and remove the head and feet; place the chicken on the table with the breast down. Take a small, sharp-pointed sabatier knife and cut the skin from neck to rump right down the back bone. Carefully and slowly run the knife between the bones and the flesh, keeping it always close to the bone. Take out first the wings, then loosen the carcass, and then take out the legs. Unjoint and separate each bone, and take it out as you come to it. Do not take the small bones from the wings; they may be cut off. When you have removed all the flesh from the bones, keeping it perfectly whole, and without breaking the skin, wipe the skin and put it on the table; draw the legs and the wings inside. Take all the raw meat from the other chicken, rejecting the skin and bones, but you do not have to bone this one carefully. Put it in the meat grinder, with half the ham, all the veal and half the bacon. When chopped, season it with two teaspoonfuls of salt, and two saltspoonfuls of white pepper; add the egg and mix thoroughly. Put a thin layer of this into the boned chicken, put in here and there long pieces of the remaining ham and bacon, a layer of mushrooms, blocks of truffles, then another layer of the forcemeat, and so continue until you have used all the ingredients. Pull up the skin and sew it down the back, making a perfect roll. Tie the neck and rump. Roll this in cheese cloth, fasten it securely, and sew the cheese cloth so that the roll will be perfect when done.