Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

Wash the fowl, and put it into a deep stew-pan with boiling water enough to cover it. Heat the water until it boils again ; then skim in carefully, and set the pan where the water will only bubble until the meat becomes tender. It is impossible to state just the length of time required for the cooking, because so much depends upon the age of the fowl ; it may be an hour and a half or it may be three hours. When the fowl gets tender, remove it from the water, and put it away to cool ; also set the water away. It may take several hours for both to become cold. Meanwhile soak the gelatine in a gill of cold water for two hours. When the chicken liquor has become cool and has been skimmed, put a pint and a half into a saucepan with the clove, bay leaf, carrot, and onion, and simmer for ten minutes ; then add a grain of cayenne, a level teaspoonful of salt, and the soaked gelatine. After straining this liquor through a napkin, pour a thin layer into a mould, and set away to harden. Free the cold fowl of skin, fat, and bones, and cut it into thin strips. Season well with salt and pepper, and lay it lightly in the mould when the jelly becomes hard. Pour the liquid jelly over the meat, and again set the mould away. At serving-time dip it into warm water, and turn out on a flat dish. Jellied chicken may be made of the remains of cold roast chicken or turkey, or boiled fowl or turkey. When there is no stock on hand, the bones of the cold chicken should be covered with water, and simmered for several hours to obtain a supply. * Chicken a la Marengo. Singe and cut up two chickens. Put a quarter of a pound of sliced fat salt pork into a frying-pan, and fry until crisp and brown ; then remove it, and put in the pieces of chicken, first rolling them in flour. Fry brown on all sides ; then transfer to a deep stew-pan. Put two table-spoonfuls of chopped onion into the frying-pan, and when it has become browned, add two table-spoonfuls of butter and four heaping table-spoonfuls of -flour. When the sauce gets brown, add a quart of chicken stock or any other good stock, and simmer for five minutes. Season with salt and pepper ; and after adding a cupful of strained tomato, and satisfying yourself that there is seasoning enough, strain the sauce upon the chicken. Cover, and simmer for twenty minutes ; then add a can of mushrooms, and cook ten minutes longer. This dish must be highly seasoned, and at least an eighth of a teaspoonful of cayenne should be used. Here is another receipt : Use two chickens, each weighing between three and four pounds, one can of mushrooms, half a cupful of clarified butter, six eggs, one dozen stoned olives, eight small triangles of toast, a pint and a half of clear beef stock, one gill of stewed and strained tomato, three table-spoonfuls of flour, three teaspoonfuls of salt, half a teaspoonful of pepper, one bay leaf, one sprig of parsley, two table-spoonfuls each of minced onion, carrot, and celery, and two cloves.