Old-Fashioned Chicken Pot-Pie

1 (3-pound) fowl

1/2 cupful fat salt pork, diced

3 cupfuls boiling water

4 tablespoonfuls flour

1/2 cupful cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Short biscuit crust

Clean and disjoint the fowl. Heat a small iron pot and put the salt pork in it. Try out the fat, then toss in the chicken, and cook until well-browned. Add the water, cover and let simmer over the heat or in the oven till tender. Season, add the flour and cream, blended, let boil up once and set the paste in position in a casserole as follows: Cut a strip two inches wide and line the inside of the casserole. Pour in the chicken mixture, set a round cover in place over the top of the boiling liquid, and pinch the two edges together; set in the oven, and bake till light brown. Invert on a platter, and serve surrounded with buttered peas or asparagus tips.

Potted Chicken

Select a fowl weighing from four to six pounds. Singe and clean, then brown all over in beef or bacon drippings. Slightly fry an onion, a cupful of celery tips and diced stalks and a half cupful of carrots; add the chicken, and a little boiling water; put in two cloves, six peppercorns, a teaspoonful of salt, a bit of bay leaf, and simmer until tender - about four hours, replenishing the water as needed. Serve with a gravy made from the stock, thickened with cooked brown or uncoated rice.

Chicken Fricassee

Dress, clean and cut up a fowl according to the general directions. Put the pieces in a kettle with 4 tablespoon-fuls of drippings; let them brown slightly on both sides, but take care they do not burn. When slightly browned, add enough boiling water to cover, salt and pepper and a bouquet of herbs. Simmer until tender, about three hours for a fowl, and one and one-half hours for chicken. Make a sauce of 2 tablespoonfuls of butter or oleomargarine and 4 tablespoonfuls of flour. Add to it slowly 2 cupfuls of the liquid in which the chicken was cooked. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Arrange toast or split biscuits on a hot dish, place the chicken on the bread and pour over the sauce. A border of boiled brown or uncoated rice may surround the chicken if the toast or biscuits are not used.

Fried Chicken

Select a young chicken. Disjoint and cut up as for fricassee. Roll each piece in flour and brown in a frying pan in equal parts of lard and butter, dusting the chicken, as it cooks, with salt and pepper. Turn only once. This browning process should take about twenty minutes, and, after this length of time, the meat should be cooked through. Then place the chicken in a pan, or on a platter, dot with a little extra butter and steam it for an hour. This will make it very tender.

Make a gravy of the drippings in the frying pan; add additional flour, if judgment so dictates, and use thin cream or rich hot milk as the liquid.

Plain Chicken Casserole

Dress and disjoint a chicken, according to the general directions. Roll in flour, dust with salt and pepper, pack in a casserole, and barely cover with boiling water. Cook gently until the chicken is tender, about one and three-quarter hours. Serve plain with the resulting gravy or add a half cupful of sweet or slightly sour cream to the gravy, together with a little extra thickening to make up for the dilution. Fowl may be used in the same way, if four hours are allowed for the cooking.