Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/198

170 glaze the chicken, and serve with a brown fricassee of mushrooms.

Cut them up, and season the joints with mixed spices and white pepper. Put into a pint of clear gravy or stock, two onions, three blades of mace, a large piece of lemon peel, and a bunch of sweet herbs. When ready put in the chickens, and stew them gently half an hour, covered close. When done, take them out, keep hot over boiling water, strain the sauce, thicken it with butter rolled in flour, and add salt and nutmeg. Just before you serve it, pour in, by degrees, ¼ pint of cream, heated, and the yolks of two eggs, beaten; keep stirring least it curdle, and do not let it boil: pour it over the chickens. A glass of white wine may be added. Garnish with lemon. You may put into the stew-pan, a quarter of an hour after the chickens, some quite young green peas and lettuce.—The French Fricassée Naturel is as follows: cut up the chickens, blanch them in hot water a few minutes, then dip them into cold water, and put them into a stew-pan with 4 oz. butter, parsley, green onions, and a tea-cupful of trimmed button mushrooms, to warm through, and slightly brown; add salt and white pepper, and dredge flour over them; then put in a little of the liquor they were blanched in, and let it simmer half an hour, or till the chickens are done: take them out, and keep hot, strain the sauce, give it a quick boil, add the yolks of two eggs, and pour it over the chickens.

Cut a fat fowl down the back and breast, then across, to be in four equal parts. Melt a very little piece of butter in a stew-pan, put in four slices from the thickest part of a boiled ham, then the fowl, and stew it gently, till done; take out, keep it hot, pour the fat off the glaze at the bottom of the stew-pan, and pour in a little good gravy, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Simmer gently a few minutes, during which, fry, in the fat you have poured off, four toasts, dust over them a little pepper and salt, place them in a dish, a quarter of the fowl on each; either with the ham or not. Skim the sauce, and serve in a tureen.