Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

which will be seen like white strings. If the bird is old these sinews are very troublesome to get out ; a good way is to wind each separately round and round a skewer, and then to pull, with the fingers wrapped in a cloth to prevent slipping. Now put your finger in at the hole where the bird was drawn, and very gently loosen all the outside skin from the flesh of the legs and thighs. You can now push the joints of the legs quite inside the body. Draw the skin neatly and smoothly down . Truss with string as for a roast fowl, only when you tuck in the tail pass your needle over the ends of the leg bones inside and not outside the bird. These directions apply to Fowls and to Turkeys. In trussing all other birds, including game, the wings are cut off at the first joint, not folded back. The second joint is, as usual, secured with the legs to the sides of the bird. Woodcock and Snipe are not drawn. The heads are skinned and left on, and the long beak is run like a skewer through the joints of the legs and wings and through the body, so as to keep the bird in shape. Woodcock and Snipe need most careful and gentle plucking, as their skin is very delicate and easily tears. The art of boning a bird cannot possibly be taught by a book. One or two lessons are indispensable, as well as neat fingers and plenty of practice. It is most important to cook all Poultry thoroughly. Underdone Poultry is quite as disagreeable to the eye and distasteful to the palate as underdone fish. French people manage the roasting of Poultry much better than we do, for they roast slowly before a wood-fire and are careful to baste the bird continually with butter. Poultry cannot be too moist whilst cooking. Whether a fowl is to be roasted or braised, it should be tied up in a sheet of very well buttered paper and frequently basted. It is a good plan to tie a flap of fat bacon over the breast of the bird, and to leave it on till the last five minutes. Then lightly dredge a little flour over the bird, and baste liberally with good butter. If the fowl is very slowly roasted before a cleai’, not a fierce, fire (on no account should it be baked in the oven), well basted, and tied up in a buttered paper till the last five minutes, it will be thoroughly cooked and not in the least greasy. 26o Roast Chicken. — Prepare tlie bird as baa already been described, with the liver inside it. Allow an hour and a quarter for a capon, three-quarters of an hour for a large fowl ; and from half an hour to forty minutes for a chicken.