The fashion of serving bread sauce with roasted poultry or game is unknown on the continent, and the French are especially intolerant of our "panade" as they term bread sauce. En revanche, the English will not accept water-cress as the best accompaniment to roast chicken, quails, or partridges. Nevertheless it is a delicious and appropriate accompaniment, and one we shall do well to adopt, at least by way of a change.

It is very rarely indeed chickens are properly roasted; they are too generally dried up before the fire, or sodden with dripping or other strong fat. The much neglected rule of frequent basting needs to be enforced in the roasting of chickens. English housewives are so chary in using butter one hesitates to say it is the proper fat with which to baste these delicate viands, and it is the only one used in France. Good cooking butter can generally be had for one and sixpence the pound, and as, if carefully put away, it will serve many times, it is not after all a serious extravagance. A pound of butter will be a liberal allowance for basting a pair of chickens. It is always best in roasting poultry to do it slowly at first, and, if necessary to increase the heat to brown the skin, to do so when the cooking is nearly completed. It is a good plan to put a piece of butter the size of a walnut, mixed with pepper and salt, in the bodies of the chickens, as it assists in keeping them moist.

When the chickens are placed on the dish pour round them a little good clear gravy made of beef and the giblets, and have ready some fresh green water-cress, well washed and thoroughly dried. Nothing could be more objectionable than any moisture clinging to the cress, therefore be very particular on this point. Place a thick border of the cress round the dish and a sprig on the breast of each chicken. The carver will send a little of the gravy and the cress to each guest, and no other vegetable or accompaniment will be served.