A chicken over a year old should always be boiled or steamed or fricasseed.

As a rule a boiled fowl is better without stuffing. Cleanse thoroughly, truss neatly, sew up in a piece of mosquito-netting or coarse cheese-cloth, fitted to the shape, and cover deeply with boiling salted water to which has been added a tablespoonful of vinegar. Cook gently twenty minutes to the pound. It should not reach the boil in less than half an hour. If really tough, put on in cold water, after trussing and sewing it up, add a little vinegar to it, and heat so slowly that it does not boil in the first hour. After it begins to simmer, cook twenty minutes to the pound and never let it boil fast. A bit of fat salt pork dropped into the pot at the end of the first hour and cooked with it will restore much of the richness lost by the use of cold water.

Unwrap, draw out the threads, and dish, pouring four spoonfuls of egg sauce over the breast and serving the rest in a boat. Send around boiled rice with it.