Split down the back as for broiling and lay, breast upward, in your covered roaster. Dust with pepper and salt and pour in a cupful of boiling water or weak stock or consomme. Cover closely, and cook gently fifteen minutes to the pound if young, twenty if the subject be a year old. If it is over the latter age, cook it in some other way. Lift the cover when the chicken is half done, and turn it over to cook the other side. Ten minutes before taking it up turn the breast upward again, baste well with gravy, then with butter, dredge with flour and cover again, with the valve open, to brown. Take up and dish the chicken, thicken the gravy with brown roux, season to taste, and pour a few spoonfuls over the fowl, the rest into a boat.

The flavor of the chicken is better preserved by this process than by any other known to cooks. Therefore the simpler the seasoning the better.