Fowl and Oysters
Take a fine fat young fowl, and having trussed it for boiling, fill the body and craw with oysters, seasoned with a few blades of mace, tying it round with twine to keep them in. Put the fowl into a tall strait-sided jar, and cover it closely. Then place the jar in a kettle of water, set it over the fire, and let it boil at least an hour and a half after the water has come to a hard boil. When it is done take out the fowl, and keep it hot while you prepare the gravy, of which you will find a quantity in the jar. Transfer this gravy to a saucepan, enrich it with the beaten yolks of two eggs mixed with three table-spoonfuls of cream, and add a large table-spoonful of fresh butter rolled in flour. If you cannot get cream, you must have a double portion of butter. Set this sauce over the fire, stirring it well, and when it comes to a boil, add twenty-five oysters. In five minutes take it off, put it into a sauce-boat, and serve it up with the fowl, which cooked in this manner will be found excellent.
Clams may be substituted for oysters, but they should be removed from the fowl before it is sent to table. Their flavor being drawn out in the gravy, the clams themselves will be found tough, tasteless, and not proper to be eaten.