Stewed.—Half roast the duck, place it in a stewpan with 1 pint good gravy, 3 glasses red wine, an onion, a bit of lemon peel, a bunch of sweet herbs, an anchovy or a teaspoonful of the sauce, pepper, and salt. It will not need stewing more than an hour, and should be done very slowly. When done, strain the gravy, skim it, and add a dessertspoonful of Worcester sauce. Thicken with butter and flour, return the gravy to the stewpan, make the duck hot, and serve.
Fowl (Poulet, poularde, volaille). Boiled.—Place 2 fowls trussed for boiling, with an onion and a piece of butter inside each, into a saucepan with sufficient water and 3 oz. butter, 2 carrots, a bunch of sweet herbs (parsley, thyme, and celery), whole pepper and salt to taste; let them boil slowly till done—about 1 hour. Serve within a border of plainly boiled brussels sprouts, and with onion sauce poured over them.
Braised Drumsticks.—Braise some drumsticks of fowls, and arrange them upright round the outside of a small basin, which may contain finely chopped salad with its dressing. Slices of tongue and curled ham may be placed alternately between the drumsticks. The plate and lower part of the basin should be hidden by mustard and cress, relieved by thin slices of beetroot.
Chaudfroid.—Cut from the white part of a boiled chicken oval pieces about 2 in. long. Make some sauce with 1 oz. butter, 1 oz. flour, and ½ pint very strong stock. Let it boil up once, add ¼ oz. of gelatine if the stock is not quite a stiff jelly when cold. When the sauce is beginning to set, mask each piece of chicken thickly with it. Place a layer of aspic jelly, roughly broken up, on a dish, and when the sauce on the pieces of chicken is quite cold and set, lay them neatly on the aspic; in the centre of the dish heap up cold cooked peas or beans, or a macédoine of vegetables.
Cold Fowls.—(a) Boil the fowl in the stock-pot and let it stay in the stock till both are cold, it will be much better flavoured. For the sauce, either of these will do. (1) Melt 2 oz. butter, add 1½ oz. flour, and 1½ gills white stock or milk. When it boils, add ½ teaspoonful lemon juice, and 2 tablespoonfuls cream. (2) Like the above, but with the yolk of an egg instead of the cream. (3) Boil 1 or 2 heads of celery tender in white-stock or milk and water, and rub them through a fine sieve. Take ½ pint of the liquor, thicken with butter and flour, add the celery, and just boil. All these sauces must be thick enough not to run off the fowl into the dish. Crumbs coloured with cochineal, and then dried to crispness in a very slow oven, or tinted with beetroot juice or horseradish dyed red, makes a pretty garnish. The boiled liver rubbed through a sieve over the fowl, and contrasted with slices of boiled carrot cut into fanciful shapes, and put at intervals round the dish with parsley, makes a change in the mode of serving, and has the recommendation of being an eatable garnish.
(b) The meat of large cold roast fowls, however dark in colour, and however tough, may be made tender by gently simmering in a stewpan over the fire in the usual way, or better still, in the oven; for the latter, cut the fowl into joints, place them in a deep pie-dish with enough cold water to completely cover them; place the dish on the bottom shelf of the oven, which should not be too hot, and let it remain until sufficiently tender to draw out the bones; watch it in order to add more water as the first reduces. It must be kept quite under water all the time, or it would dry up and become hard and brown; at the same time it does not do to put it in too much water at first, as it would draw the goodness from the meat. It will probably take about 1½ hour to do; and prepared in this way, it will be ready to use for rissoles, croquettes, curry, or mince, taking care to chop up a little fat streaky bacon with it. The liquor in which it has been cooked will be very good to moisten it as required, or it may be added to the stock-pot.
Country Captain.—Cut up a chicken into small pieces, melt some butter in a saucepan, and put into it an onion shred very fine, fry until quite crisp, sprinkle the fowl well with curry powder, add some salt, and fry until thoroughly cooked, turning the pieces frequently. Serve very hot, with the fried onions on the top.
Curried.—Mix together 1 tablespoonful mild curry powder, 1½ tablespoonful dried flour, and 2 large saltspoonfuls salt; skin and cut in neat pieces the remains of cold fowl, dip them into the curry powder, pressing the powder in. Thinly slice one large onion, peel, core, and chop a sharp apple. Have in a fryingpan a piece of butter larger than a walnut; when hot, cook the onion in it, turning often. It should not be brown, and may require a little more butter. When tender, add the apple, just to make hot; then put the onion and apple into a hot stewpan, and keep warm. You will now require about 2 oz. butter, made hot in the fryingpan. Put in the fowl, turn frequently to prevent browning or burning, for the fowl should only be a deep yellow. When of that colour, and enriched with the butter, place it in the stewpan with the onion and apple. Pour over by degrees 1 pint hot, not boiling, milk. Shake the stewpan over a clear, slow fire 2-3 minutes, and leave by the side of the fire to simmer gently for ¾ hour. Skim from time to time. The curry should be as smooth as cream, but a little thicker. These quantities are for half a fine fowl. Send to table very hot, with a dish of rice and a cut of lemon. By strictly following this recipe, it will be scarcely possible to discover that the fowl has been previously cooked. Mild curry powder should be used.
Cutlets.—(a) Take the fillets of 3 chicken, which will give you 6 large and 6 small ones; flatten them with the handle of a knife which has been dipped in cold water; pull off the upper skin from the large fillets with the knife, and take the sinews from the smaller ones; dip them in oiled butter, and place them in a sautépan, shaking a little fine salt over them. Have ready prepared a rich white sauce, in which a few prepared cockscombs, quenelles of veal or chicken shaped into balls the size of a marble, some button mushrooms, and a few dice of truffles have been stewed. When it is time to dress the cutlets, fry them lightly and quickly, drain the butter from them, pour over them a few spoonfuls of white sauce, and just at the last a spoonful of thick cream; arrange them in a circle in the dish, alternately a large and a small fillet, filling the centre with the sauce of cockscombs, &c., which has been preparing. If you wish to have 10 cutlets, 5 chickens will be wanted for this dish. (b) Take the 10 fillets, pare them well; then take the small bones from the pinions, scrape them, and stick one of these bones into the point of each fillet—this must be very nicely done; season them with pepper and salt, dip them into yolk of egg (2 will be required), then into breadcrumbs, next into some melted butter, and breadcrumbs again; see that they are quite covered. Cut the small fillets into dice, and stew them in a purée of cucumbers and onions, thickened with the yolk of egg, and seasoned with salt and a very little sugar, also some mushrooms cut into dice; put this into the middle of the dish, and having broiled the cutlets, arrange them in a circle round it. They should not be broiled a minute before they are wanted. If preferred, the small fillets may also be broiled in the same way as the others; in that case the purée of cucumbers should be omitted, and they should be served with a good white sauce, into which a little cream has been stirred just at the last, and some slices of truffle lightly fried.
Devilled.—Cut the inner part of the leg in 4 long slits, taking care not to cut them through. Put in each cut a little piece of butter, some mustard, pepper, and salt, and a little lemon juice. Place the legs in a tin in front of the fire for about ¼ hour, taking care they do not get too brown; the last thing turn them over, and finish on the top side with a little more butter, pepper, salt, and mustard.