Clean, stuff and truss a pair of chickens, as for roasting. Dredge well with salt, pepper and flour. Cut a quarter of a pound of pork in slices, and put part on the bottom of a deep stew-pan with two slices of carrot and one large onion, cut fine. Stir over the fire until they begin to color; then put in the chickens, and lay the remainder of the pork over them. Place the stew-pan in a hot oven for twenty minutes; then add white stock to half cover the chicken (about two quarts), and a bouquet of sweet herbs. Dredge well with flour. Cover the pan and return to the oven. Baste about every fifteen minutes, and after cooking one hour, turn over the chickens. Cook, in all, two hours. Serve with Hollandaise sauce or with the sauce in which the chickens were cooked, it being strained over them.
One cold roast chicken, two quarts of stock (any kind), one of water, quarter of a pound of salt pork, one quart of green okra, an onion, salt, pepper, three table-spoonfuls of flour. Cut the okra pods into small pieces. Slice the pork and onion. Fry the pork, and then add the onion and okra. Cover closely, and fry half an hour. Cut all the meat from the chicken. Put the bones on with the water. Add the okra and onion, first being careful to press out all the pork fat possible. Into the fat remaining put the flour, and stir until it becomes a rich brown; add this to the other ingredients. Cover the pot, and simmer three hours; then rub through a sieve, and add the stock, salt and pepper and the meat of the chicken, cut into small pieces. Simmer gently twenty minutes. Serve with a dish of boiled rice.
Fry out the fat of a slice of bacon or fat ham, drain it off, and in it fry the slices of a large onion brown; scald, peel and cut up two quarts fresh tomatoes, when in season (use canned tomatoes otherwise), and cut thin one quart okra; put them, together with a little chopped parsley, in a stew-kettle with about three quarts of hot broth of any kind; cook slowly for three hours, season with salt and pepper. Serve hot. In chicken broth the same quantity of okra pods, used for thickening instead of tomatoes, forms a chicken gumbo soup.
Larding is a simple operation. The pork should be firm and young (salt, of course). Cut thin, even slices parallel with the rind, and cut these in long, narrow strips that will fit into the needle. For beef, veal, turkey or chicken the strips should be about as large round as a lead pencil, and about three and a half inches long; and for birds, chops, and sweetbreads they should be about as large round as a match. Three slices are all that can be cut from one piece of pork, because when you get more than an inch away from the rind, the pork is so tender that it will break when in the needle. Put the strips in a bowl of broken ice, to harden. Have the meat, if beef or veal, free of skin and gristle. Put a strip (also called a lardoon) into the needle as far as it will go. With a skewer or knife draw a line on both sides of the meat and along the upper part. Thrust the needle into the meat at one of the side lines; and when it is about half way through to the top of the piece, press the steel slightly with the thumb and fore-finger, to hold the lardoon in place until it has entered the meat. Now push the needle through to the top, and gently draw it out, leaving about three-quarters of an inch of the strip exposed at both the side and upper part of the meat That part of the pork which is hidden should be half an inch under the surface. The needle's course is as if it started under the eaves of a gable roof and came out at the ridge-pole. Continue until all the rows are filled with lardoons. Two rows are enough for a fillet of beef. If the strips are too large for the needle they will be pressed out as soon as the lower part of the needle enters the meat.
The following of hot breakfast dishes may be of assistance in knowing what to provide for the comfortable meal called breakfast. Broiled beefsteak, broiled chops, broiled chicken, broiled fish, broiled quail on toast, fried pork tenderloins, fried pig's feet, fried oysters, fried clams, fried liver and bacon, fried chops, fried pork, ham and eggs fried, veal cutlets breaded, sausages, fricasseed tripe, fricasseed kidneys, turkey or chicken hash, corn beef hash, beef croquettes, codfish balls, creamed codfish, stewed meats on toast, poached eggs on toast, omelettes, eggs boiled plain, and eggs cooked in any of the various styles.
One large chicken or tender fowl, weighing about three pounds; six table-spoonfuls of butter, one table-spoonful of chopped salt pork, three eggs, one teaspoonful of onion juice, one of lemon juice, half a cupful of white stock or cream, one cupful of stale bread, one of new milk, and salt and pepper to taste. Skin the chicken, take all the flesh from the bones, and chop and pound very fine. Mix the pork with it, and rub through a flour sieve. Cook the bread and milk together for ten minutes, stirring often, to get smooth. Add this to the chicken, and then add the seasoning, stock or cream, yolks of eggs, one by one, and lastly the whites, which have been beaten to a stiff froth. Cover the sides and bottom of a frying-pan with soft butter. Take two table-spoons and a bowl of boiling water. Dip one spoon in the water, and then fill it with force-meat, heaping it; then dip the other spoon in the hot water, and turn the contents of the first into it. This gives the quenelle the proper shape; and it should at once be slipped into the frying-pan. Continue the operation until all the meat is shaped. Cover the quenelles with white stock, boiling, and slightly salted, and cook gently twenty minutes. Take them up, and drain for a minute; then arrange on a border of mashed potatoes or fried bread. Pour a spoonful of either Bechamel, mushroom or olive sauce on each, and the remainder in the centre of the dish. Serve hot.
Split them down the back and broil the same as chicken; seasoning well with salt, pepper and plenty of butter. Broil slices of salt pork, very thin; place a slice over each bird and serve.
Cut cold boiled sweet potatoes in thick slices, and season well with salt and pepper. Have the bottom of the frying-pan covered with either butter, or pork, ham or chicken fat. Put enough of the sliced potatoes in the pan to just cover the bottom. Brown one side, and turn, and brown the other. Serve in a hot dish. Cold potatoes can be served in cream, cut in thick slices and toasted, cut in thick slices, dipped in egg and bread crumbs and fried brown, and can be fried in batter.
Prepare as you would for baking or roasting; fill with an oyster stuffing, made as the above. Tie the legs and wings close to the body, place in salted boiling water with the breast downward; skim it often and boil about two hours, but not till the skin breaks. Serve with oyster or celery sauce. Boil a nicely pickled piece of salt pork, and serve at table a thin slice to each plate. Some prefer bacon or ham instead of pork. Some roll the turkey in a cloth dipped in flour. If the liquor is to be used afterwards for soup, the cloth imparts an unpleasant flavor. The liquor can be saved and made into a nice soup for the next day's dinner, by adding the same seasoning as for chicken soup.
