The American Pictorial Home Book
or Housekeeper's Encyclopedia - online book

A reference manual of household management in Victorian times.

Home Main Menu Order Support About Search



Share page  


Previous Contents Next

I36                                         FOWLS.
make them fine. Make a gravy of some of the water in which they were boiled, some butter and minced parsley, and pour it over the chicken, and serve in a hot dish.
To Fry Chickens.—Cut your chickens into quarters or every limb separate, and rub them with flour, the yolk of an egg or dip them in a thin batter, then strew on them some crumbs of stale bread, with pepper and salt and chopped parsley. Fry them in sweet bacon grease, butter or lard. Bacon grease is the best, and when done, put them into your dish on a hot stove ; then pour some cream into the pan, or fresh sweet milk, a small portion thickened with a teaspoonful of flour, and poured in and stirred and poured over the chicken, and serve hot. Or, if preferred, grated nutmeg, lemon peel, a small quantity of cayenne pepper, some mushroom pow­der, or catsup, and a little lemon juice may be added to the gravy.
Fried Chickens—(Mrs. E. A. B. Upshur, Virginia).—When the chickens are cleaned and cut up, dip the pieces in beaten yolks of eggs, then roll them in bread crumbs and sprinkle with black pep­per and salt. While they are frying, make a gravy of rich cream seasoned with a little nutmeg and chopped parsley stewed together. Pour the gravy into the dish and lay the chicken on it.
Fried Chicken with Lemon Peel.—The remains of roasted fowl, vinegar, salt and cayenne pepper to taste, 4 minced shallots, yolk of egg; to every teaspoonful of bread crumbs allow 1 blade of pounded mace, 1-2 teaspoonful of minced lemon peel, 2 pinches of salt, and a few grains of cayenne pepper. Steep the pieces of fowl as in the preceding recipe; then dip them in the yolk of egg or clar­ified butter, sprinkle over bread crumbs, with which have mixed salt, mace, cayenne pepper*an# lemon peel in the above proportions. Fry of a light brown and serve with or without gravy, as may be pre­ferred. Ten minutes to fry the fowl.
To Fry Chicken—(Georgia Cook).—After cutting up the chick­ens, salt and pepper, flour and fry them in boiling lard or oil; when the whole are fried, drain off the lard and add a good spoonful of sweet butter, a little flour stirred into a teacupfu) of sweet cream, and some scalded parsley minced fine for the gravy.
Fried Chicken.—Take nice, fat, young chickens about half-grown, cut into nice pieces and salt and pepper to taste. Roll or dredge thickly with flour or corn meal, and stir in boiling lard. They will be more tender by covering while cooking (even a rather hot lid with some hot embers on it). Wjien a nice brown, take it up. and to make a nice gravy add 2 heaping teaspoonfuls of flour to the lard, in which the chicken has been fried. Stir well and add water or sweet milk to make of the proper consistency, stirring all the while. Season to taste.