Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

Put two level table-spoonfuls of butter and the minced vegetables into a small stew-pan. Place on the fire, and cook slowly for ten minutes; then draw forward, and stir until the vegetables are slightly browned. Add half the flour, and stir until it is brown. Draw back to a cooler place, and gradually add half the stock. Stir until it boils up ; then add the herbs and cloves. Set the pan back where its contents will cook slowly for forty minutes. Have the chickens drawn, singed, wiped, and then cut in joints, as for a stew. Season with half the pepper and two teaspoonfuls of the salt. Put the remainder of the butter on the fire in a large frying-pan, and when it becomes hot, put in the chicken. Fry slowly for twenty -five minutes ; then take up. Now pour about two table-spoonfuls of the fat remaining in the pan into a small frying-pan, and set aside. Put the remaining half of the flour in the pan from which the chicken was taken, and stir until a smooth and frothy mixture is formed. Draw the pan back, and add the rest of the stock. Cook for three minutes, and then add to the sauce in the stew-pan. Put the chicken, olives, mushrooms, and strained tomato into a large stew-pan. Strain the sauce upon them, and place on the fire. Simmer gently for fifteen minutes. While the chicken is cooking in the sauce, fry the eggs in the butter that was poured into the small frying-pan. They are not to be fried in the ordinary shape. Break the eggs, one at a time, into a small cup. Let the butter get hot in the pan. Now, with the left hand, tip the pan forward so that all the butter shall flow to one spot. Drop the egg into it ; and as soon as it hardens a little on one side, turn it, and cook on the other side. This should give an oblong shape. Take up the egg as soon as it is slightly browned. Cook all in the same manner. Take up the chicken, and arrange it in a pyramid on a large dish. Garnish with the olives and mushrooms. Arrange the toast and fried eggs at the base. Pour the sauce over all, and serve. The olives and eggs may be omitted if one does not care for them. Chicken Cutlets. For a dozen and a half cutlets use a generous pint of cooked chicken, chopped rather coarse, a cupful of cream, three table-spoonfuls of butter, one of flour, one of salt, four level table-spoonfuls of fine-chopped mushrooms, four eggs, one pint of sifted crumbs, half a teaspoonful of pepper, half a teaspoonful of onion juice, one tablespoonful of lemon juice, and one teaspoonful of chopped parsley. Mix the chicken with the salt, pepper, parsley, onion juice, lemon juice, and chopped mushrooms. Put the cream on the stove in a large frying-pan. Beat the flour and butter together until smooth and light, and when the cream begins to boil, stir this mixture into it. Stir constantly until the sauce boils again ; then add the seasoned chicken, and cook for three minutes. Beat two of the eggs until light, and stir them into the boiling ingredients. Take the frying-pan from the fire immediately, and after pouring the contents into a flat dish, put them away to cool. It is well to set the dish in the open air in frosty weather, or to place it, when cool, on ice in the refrigerator for an hour or more; for the colder the mixture becomes, the more easily may the cutlets be formed.