Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

bird with sauce oysters, put it into a covered earthenware jar, and plunge the jar into a saucepan of water. Bring it to the boil, and let it simmer for an hour and a half. Serve round the chicken the good gravy which it and the oysters will have made. Or let it get cold, and serve it next day with the solidified gravy round it as jelly. Supreme of Chicken. — It used to be the custom to allow six chickens and a whole tongue for this dish, which, although not so wasteful as Lord Alvanley’s Supreme of les sots y la-issent, was very extravagant. One large fowl is quite enough for a Supreme if cleverly managed. Take the fillets from the breast and wings of the fowl, trim them into twelve delicate little fillets. Lay them on a wet board, and bat them with the wet cutlet-bat. Butter a saute-pan, and melt a little butter at the bottom of it. Put the fillets of chicken in, with a squeeze of lemon-juice, and a very little salt, lay a buttered paper over them, and cook them in the oven for eight minutes. Be most careful not to let them brown. With the giblets of the chicken make a good Velonte sauce (see page 135), coat the fillets with it (see Masking, page 161), and set them to get cold. When served, put a round of cooked tongue the size of half-a-crown on each fillet. This dish is much better cold than hot. Chicken a la Casserole. — Truss the chicken for roasting, and season it well, rubbing the seasoning well in. Wyvern says the best seasoning he ever tasted was composed by bruising a piece of garlic the size of a hazel nut, and adding to it a teaspoonful of finely-powdered dry rosemary, besides salt and pepper. An alternative suggestion is to use a small shallot instead of the garlic, and mince fresh rosemary. In this dish everything depends on the seasoning. When the chicken is seasoned lay it in the casserole with an ounce of fresh buttei'. Turn the chicken about over a very moderate fire till it is slightly brown, then put the casserole, covered with the lid, into a fairly fast oven and keep it there till the fowl is done, basting frequently with brown gravy made from the giblets. Be vei’y careful not to let it burn. Rosemary and Basil, so much used in old English cookery, are now seldom used out of Italy. It is a great pity that they CHICKEN A LA CASSEROLE 265 should be neglected, for both give an excellent and quite distinct flavour. Fricassee Of Chicken. — Cut the flesh from the breasts and wings of two chickens in neat fillets, making eight pieces, and set them aside. Put all the rest of the chickens in a pan, and boil quickly for two hours in as much water as will just cover the carcases. Take out the stock, add a sliced onion and a sprig of blanched parsley, reduce it one half and strain it. Now take the fillets of chicken, and put them in cold water in a stewpan. Set it on the fire, and when the water becomes just hot change it for fresh cold water. Do this three or four times till the chicken is made white. When it is bleached, drain and dry it. Put a quarter of a pound of butter in a stewpan, add the chicken, then add the stock from the carcases and a few mushrooms untrimmed. Simmer as slowly as possible for at least one hour. If it boils the chicken will shrivel and become tough.