The home cook book

Two ingredients not mentioned above may be included, if one's taste wishes. One is a cup of stale breadcrumbs with the gravy, and another is a cup of chopped boiled ham. CHICKEN POTPIE Singe, draw, wash, and cut up two fat fowls. Lay them in a pot with quarter of a pound of salt pork cut in slices, and cover with tepid water. Bring slowly to boil, and cook slowly till the meat is about to separate from the bone. No time can be set, because the flesh of the fowl may be tender or may be tough. It is best to allow two hours and a half or three hours. If your fowls are tough, then you have time to cook tender ; if they are tender and the meat gets done before you are ready for it, hold up the cooking by setting the pot in a warm place. Twenty minutes before serving bring the chickens to a quick boil and drop from a tablespoon pieces of dumpling dough (described on page 82). Do not let the boiling stop, but keep it up for fifteen minutes or perhaps twenty minutes. Then lift your meat to a hot platter and lay on also the dumplings. Into the boiling gravy stir flour worked smooth in a little cold water. Season to taste, and when the flour thickens ladle some of the gravy over the meat and dumplings. Serve the rest of the gravy in a bowl. PLAIN POTTED CHICKEN Boil the chicken till tender and ready to fall from the bone, using as little water as possible and putting in seasoning of salt and pepper while the chicken is cooking. Drain off the liquor or gravy and take out the meat. Separate the white meat from the dark and chop both separately and very fine. In the dish in which you wish to mold the chicken lay the white meat, completing a layer on the bottom of the mold and pile the dark on top, or press the white meat to one side and the dark to the other side. Moisten the meat by pouring over it a little of the liquid in which it was cooked, lay a saucer, plate, or small board upon it, put on a weight and set away till the meat is cold and solid. Serve the chicken turned upon a platter. POTTED CHICKEN OR TURKEY Free the roast meat of a fowl from all bones. To every pound of meat add quarter of a pound of butter, pounding it in, and add little by little one teaspoon of mace, half a nutmeg, and cayenne pepper and salt to your taste. When you have worked all to a smooth paste, pack it in small glass or earthenware pots, and cover with clarified butter. Exclude all air by sealing the pots if you wish to keep the meat for any length of time, and set in a dry, airy place. A little boiled ham minced and pounded with the chicken gives added flavor, PRESSED CHICKEN Cook a fowl in just water enough to keep it from burning until the meat loosens from the bones. After it has cooled pick it to pieces and mix the light and dark meat. Boil till hard two eggs, slice thin and add to the picked-up chicken. Boil down the water in which the chicken was cooked till it fills a small teacup. Add a little butter, pepper and salt. Mix all with the picked-up chicken, put in a mold or bowl, put on a weight to press, and set in a cool place. When time to serve, tip the chicken on a platter. CHICKEN WITH RED PEPPERS