CHAPTER XXI.
TO MAKE A FOWL TENDER AS SPRING-CHICKEN.
As I have said, the fowl was a yearling, and Molly meant to try with it an experiment she had seen practiced in France, by which fowls, not quite young, were made very tender, without being converted into fricassee or pot-pie. On Sunday morning, before going to church, she had taken a large sheet of soft paper, and, after twisting the wings over on the back, and forcing the legs up against the body snugly, securing them there with skewer and twine, and fastening the skin of the neck neatly on the back with a toothpick, she seasoned it and wrapped it entirely in the paper, which was large enough to cover it twice. She then tied it up with twine.
“Marta, put this chicken in the oven at half past eleven; that is, half an hour earlier than if it were a young chicken. Let the oven be hot, and, at a quarter past twelve, remove the paper. Take care to let all the grease that may be in it run into the pan; flour the fowl a little, and set it back in the oven and roast it. Take care to turn it often, and let it get well browned; when you take it up, remove skewer and string, pour the gravy from the giblets, with the liver and gizzard chopped very fine, into the dripping-pan; set it over the stove, season, and, if it should not look a nice rich brown, put about two drops of caramel in it. Send the gravy to table in a sauce-boat.”
Marta promised to follow directions carefully, and Molly left the kitchen; and then, remembering a mistake Marta might make, hastened back.
“I told you to flour it, but I mean only to shake a very little over it from the dredger; if it is at all thick there will be a white, pasty coating on the outside, instead of a crisp, brown one.”
After church Molly went to the kitchen to see if everything was going right, and saw on the table a cupful of pretty yellow balls. “What are these?” she asked, taking one up, but found it collapsed between her fingers. It was simply a wind ball, and the outside as thin as paper.
“They are German noodles for soup,” said Marta, her face beaming with pride.
“They are very pretty; and, though I know several sorts of noodles, I have never seen these.”
At dinner the clear soup, with the addition of Marta’s noodles, was excellent, and she found that steaming the fowl in paper, before baking, agreed just as well with the American bird as a French one; the limbs fell from under the knife, as Harry carved, and the oft despised yearling might have rivalled the youngest and juiciest spring chicken.