The bachelor and the chafing dish

Chicken a la Poulette. — This is the way Mrs. Lemcke made it in a chafing-dish before an audience : She placed a chicken weighing three pounds over the fire and covered it with boiling water, after putting in two onions, one bouquet, and one-half tablespoonful of salt. This she covered and cooked slowly until done, when she removed the skin and bones, and cut the white meat into pieces one- half an inch in size. Then she stirred two ounces of butter and two tablespoonfuls of flour over the fire three minutes, adding to it gradually one pint of chicken broth, one teaspoonful of salt, one-half teaspoonful of nutmeg, and a small bouquet, choking all five minutes. Next she mixed one- half pint of cream with the yolks of four eggs, a teaspoonful of fine-chopped parsley, and added this to the sauce, stirring it a few minutes over the fire without boiling. Then she drew the saucepan to the side of the stove and put in the fine-cut chicken and a pair of finechopped sweetbreads, which she had previously prepared by putting them in a pan and covering them with cold water. In another pan over the The Autocrat and the Chafing-dish. 95 fire she put a tablespoonful of butter. The sweetbreads were drained and dried, put into the butter, covered, and cooked slowly after an even teaspoonful of seasoning salt had been added to them. Ham. — Put half a walnut of butter in the chafingdish, and, when melted, add two tablespoons of jelly — any fruit — a dash of red pepper, and half a glass of sherry. Place sliced or cut-up ham in this and simmer for a few moments. Dried beef may be served the same way. Crabs, Soft-shell. — Clean and remove sandpouch and gill-like growth under the shells. Dry with a towel, dredge with flour, and fry in chafingdish with oil or butter. Canape Lorenzo. — This locally famous dish, the recipe of the late Lorenzo Delmonico, can only be partly made in a chafing-dish, for in its finale it needs a quick baking. One will find this canape on the menus of the Waldorf or Arena cafes, but it can only be obtained in all its glory at Del’s. For a lunch, with “ a cold bottle,” I prefer it infinitely to “a hot duck.” Ah, but it has “a get there ” aroma ! So I chronicle it her£ for history’s sake : Drop six live hard-shell crabs into boiling g6 The Bachelor and the Chafing-dish. water, add one tablespoonful of salt, boil fifteen minutes ; then remove. When cold enough to handle, take off the upper shell, extract all the meat, crack the claws and pick out the meat ; season with one even teaspoonful of salt and a little Cayenne pepper ; then measure — there should be a good pint of crab meat. Place a small saucepan, with a tablespoonful of butter, over the fire ; add two tablespoonfuls of fine-chopped white onions, cook five minutes without browning ; add one heaping tablespoonful of flour, stir and cook two minutes ; add half a cupful of white broth, stir for a few minutes longer ; then add one pint of crab meat, stir and cook eight minutes. Cut six slices of bread, cut off the crust, and fry light brown in butter on both sides. Spread the crab mixture in equal portions over the bread and set aside.