Chicken Surprise

One large fowl will do for a small dish. Roast it, and take the lean from the bones; cut it into thin slices, about an inch long, and toss it up with six or seven spoonsful of cream, and a piece of butter, as big as a walnut, rolled in flour. Boil it up, and set it to cool. Then put six or seven thin slices of bacon round it, place them in a pattypan, and put some forcemeat on each side. Work them up into the form of a French roll, with a raw egg, leaving a hollow place in the middle. Put in your fowl, and cover them with some of the same forcemeat, rubbing them smooth with a raw egg. Make them of the height and bigness of a French roll, and throw a little fine grated bread over them. Bake them three quarters, or an hour, in a gentle oven, or under a baking cover, till they come to a fine brown, and place them on your mazarine, that they may not touch one another; but place them so that they may not fall flat in the baking ; or you may form them on your table with a broad kitchen knife, and place them on the thing you intend to bake them on. You may put the leg of a chicken into one of the loaves you intend for the middle. Let your sauce be gravy, thickened with butter, and a little juice of lemon.

Chickens Chiringrate

Having cut off the feet of the chickens, break the breastbone flat with a rolling pin; but take care you do not break the skin. Flour them, fry them of a fine brown in butter; drain all the fat out of the pan, but leave the chickens in. Lay a pound of gravy-beef cut very thin over your chickens, and a piece of veal cut very thin, a little mace, two or three cloves, some whole pepper, an onion, a little bunch of sweet herbs, and a piece of carrot. Then pour in a quart of second stock, cover close, and let it stew for a quarter of an hour: take out the chickens, and keep them hot; let the gravy boil till rich and good; strain it off, and put it into your pan again, with two spoonsful of red wine, and a few mushrooms. Put in the chickens to heat; and serve with the sauce over them.

Large Fowls Forced

Having cut the skin of a large fowl down the breast, carefully slip it down so as to take out all the meat, and mix .it with a pound of beef suet, cut small. Then beat them together in a marble mortar, and take a pint of large oysters cut small, two anchovies, an eschalot, a few sweet herbs, a little pepper, some nutmeg grated, and the yolks of four eggs. Mix all these together, and lay it on the bones, then draw the skin over it, and sew it up. Put the fowl into a bladder, and boil it an hour and a quarter. Stew some oysters in good gravy, thickened with a piece of butter rolled in flour, take the fowl out of the bladder, lay it in your dish, and pour the sauce over it.

Fowls Marinated

With your finger raise the skin from the breast-bone of a large fowl or turkey; cut a veal sweetbread small, a few oysters and mushrooms, an anchovy, a little thyme, some lemon peel, and season with pepper and nutmeg. Chop them small, and mix them with the yolk of an egg. Stuff it in between the skin and the flesh, but be careful not to break the skin, and then stuff what quantity of oysters you please into the fowl: or you may lard the breasts of the fowls with bacon ; roast with a paper over the breasts, and serve with a good coulis under them.