Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

boil. Cut the vegetables very fine, and put them, with the butter, into a small frying-pan. Cook slowly for ten minutes, being careful that they do not burn. When they have acquired a light straw-color, draw them to the side of the pan, and press out all the butter with a spoon, and then put them into the stew-pan with the chicken. Into the butter remaining in the pan stir the dry flour, and cook until the mixture is smooth and frothy ; then stir it into the stew, and add salt and pepper. Let the dish simmer gently for about two hours, after which draw it forward where it will boil rapidly, and put in some dumplings. These should be made as follows while the stew is simmering: — Mix thoroughly in, and rub through, a sieve, a pint of flour, a teaspoonful of sugar, half a teaspoonful of salt, and two level teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Make a soft dough of this mixture by stirring into it a small cupful of milk, and then stir the dough into a smooth ball. Put it on a board sprinkled lightly with flour, and after rolling down to the thickness of about half an inch, cut into small round cakes. Stir the stew, and put in the dumplings. Cover tightly, and cook exactly ten minutes from the time the cover is placed over the pan. When the allotted time has passed, take up the dumplings immediately. Arrange the chicken and gravy in the centre of a large platter, and garnish with a circle of dumplings. Sprigs of parsley also may be used if you have any on hand. * Stewed Chicken. Use a fowl about a year old and weighing about five pounds. After singeing it and wiping it, cut it into handsome joints. Wash carefully, and dredge well with salt, pepper, and flour. Cut into bits a piece of chicken fat about the size of an egg, and cook it in a frying-pan until there are about four table-spoonfuls of liquid fat ; then remove any remaining solid particles from the frying-pan, and put in the pieces of chicken. Cook until they are brown on both sides, and then put them into a stew-pan. When all the meat has been browned, cut an onion fine, and cook it slowly for five minutes in the fat remaining in the frying-pan. Add three table-spoonfuls of flour, and stir until brown; then add three pints of water, and stir until it boils. Next add half a cupful of stewed tomato, and enough salt and pepper to season highly. Strain this liquor over the chicken. Put the heart, liver, and gizzard into the stew-pan, and after putting on the cover, set the stew-pan in a hot place on the stove. When the stew begins to boil, skim it, and set the stew-pan back where its contents will simply simmer for two hours. The dish should never be allowed to boil hard. * Chicken Stew with Norfolk Dumplings. For six persons use a pair of fowls weighing seven or eight pounds. Singe and draw them; then cut them into handsome joints. Dredge generously with salt and pepper, and then roll in flour. Spread in a dripping-pan, and then put in a hot oven for half an hour.