Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

Strain, skim, and slightly thicken the eau de cuisson , and finish off the fire, with two yolks of eggs beaten up in a teaspoonful of lemon-juice, and add a dessertspoonful of finely-minced parsley. CHAPTER VIII. POULTRY AND SMALL BIRDS. Chickens are always popular, varying as they do from the Poussin of the very smartest dinners to the skinny “ half-fowl ” of the railway-station luncheon basket. Poussins — that is, very young chickens — were originally a Russian delicacy, introduced into England not long ago by Messrs. Baylev, the poulterers of Mount Street. These Poussins, fattened in Sussex by a secret process, made their first public appearance in London at the Derby Day dinner given by the Prince of Wales in 1895, when upwards of fifty, one for each guest, and all of equal size, were served. Now, Monsieur Arnoult, on his poultry-farm at Granibois, not far from Paris, rears quantities of Poussins, or, as the French call them, Poulets mignons , or Poulets de lait. M. Arnoult feeds the little chickens on boiled milk just at first, and then on boiled milk thickened with the best barley flour. On this food the chickens fatten so well that at six weeks old, when they are considered to be in perfection, they weigh a pound and a quarter. The flesh is firm and delicate, and very digestible. In England Poussins are roasted and served on a canape of fried bread ; in Paris they are grilled and served with tartare sauce. Parisian doctors recommend them for invalids, for whom indeed such delicacies ought to be reserved. Poussins must be eaten the day they are killed. The American “ broiler ” is in perfection at eight weeks old ; and properly-fed English cockerels weigh nearly five pounds at twelve weeks old. But all Poultry requires careful fattening if it is to be good. Cramming never gives a good result. One recipe of old days advises the feeding of fowls with treacle, POULTRY AND SMALL BIRDS suet, and barley meal forty-two times a day, and goes on to say that the survivors (for there must have been many deaths from this martyrdom) would gain four pounds and a half in twelve days. Cramming is now done by a tube, but although weight may be gained the crammed fowl cannot be either wholesome or good in flavour. Coarse fat is too often used in feeding poultry ; the consequence is that the flesh is greasy and not firm, and there is a superabundance of fat which melts in cooking and gives a disagreeable taste to the bird. All Poultry should be plump, but over-fattening is as wasteful as it is unpleasant to the taste. Hen birds are more tender than cocks, and many people consider that chickens with dark legs are better flavoured than those with white legs. Age is best judged by the legs and feet of birds. When young, the legs are smooth, and the scales hardly overlap each other, whilst the spurs of cockerels are merely hard scaly knobs. After the first year the scales on the birds’ legs are rougher and larger, often inclining to be grey in colour, and in cocks the sharp spurs will have pushed their way through the preparatory knobs. Richly- coloured plumage is another sign of age.