MEATS.
148
and apple sauce, or send to table unstuffed, with
a garnish of seasoned watercress and gravy in a boat.
They will take from twenty-five minutes upwards
according to size.
Chicken boiled.—“Chicken boiled is chicken
spoiled” is an old saying, also quoted with regard
to turkeys; at the same time, if carefully boiled, a
fowl is often a very tempting dish. Wash the bird
nicely in lukewarm water and, when trussed, rub it
well all over (on the breast especially) with a lemon,
then wrap it in a buttered paper and next in a floured
cloth. Bring some water, slightly salted, all but to
the boil, then lay in the fowl, watch the water re-
boil, when you draw the pan to the side and let it
simmer slowly till the fowl is done, remembering
that the slower it cooks the tenderer it will be. It
will take from twenty to twenty-five minutes upwards.
It is then lifted out of its wrappings, set on a hot
dish, and served with its sauce poured over it, and
any garnish to taste. Bechamel, celery, oyster,
parsley, or mushroom sauce may be served over and
around it.
A fancy of the moment is to serve a rich bechamel
or allemande sauce with boiled or stewed fowl, using
the liquor obtained by boiling down the heads, etc.,
of some shrimps for the sauce, the fish itself,
together with cooked asparagus points, being heated
in the sauce and served with it.
In France an extremely succulent method of
serving a not over young fowl is as poule-au-pot,
when the bird is carefully trussed as for boiling, and
laid into the stock pot, or the pot au feu, when the