Fricasseed Chicken à l’Italienne (Fine)
Pair of chickens.
½ pound fat salt pork, cut into strips.
2 sprigs of parsley.
1 sprig thyme.
1 bay leaf.
A dozen mushrooms.
1 small onion.
1 clove.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 table-spoonful of salad oil.
2 glasses wine—white, or pale sherry.
Cut the chickens into joints; put them with the pork into a saucepan with a very little water, and stew, covered, until tender. Remove the chicken to a hot-water chafing-dish and keep warm while you prepare the gravy. Turn the liquor in which the chickens were cooked into a frying-pan, thicken with browned flour; put into it the herbs, onion, clove and the mushrooms chopped very fine. Boil up sharply; add the butter and stew fast half an hour. Then add the wine and oil. Simmer a few minutes, and strain through a coarse cullender over the chicken.
I have understated the merits of this admirable fricassee by styling it “fine.” The dear friend upon whose table I first saw it, will, I am sure, earn the thanks of many other housewives, with my own, by giving the receipt.