Cut one small spring chicken in pieces, dip each piece in a batter composed of 1 beaten egg, 1 cup of milk, a pinch of salt, 1/2 teaspoonful of baking powder, sifted with flour enough to form a batter.  Dip the pieces of chicken in this batter, one at a time, and fry slowly in a pan containing a couple tablespoonfuls of hot butter and lard, until a golden brown.  Place the fried chicken on a platter.

Make a gravy by adding to the fat remaining in the pan—­1 cup of milk, 1 tablespoonful of corn starch.  Allow this to brown and thicken.  Then pour the gravy over the chicken and serve garnished with parsley or watercress.

STEWED OR STEAMED CHICKEN

Cut a nicely cleaned chicken into nine pieces. (Do not separate the meat from the breast-bone until it has been cooked.) Put in a cook pot and partly cover with boiling water.  Add one small onion and a sprig of parsley, and let simmer about 1-1/2 hours, or until tender.  If an old fowl it will take about one hour longer.  Add salt and pepper.  Strain the broth, if very fat, remove a part from broth.  After separating the white meat from the breast-bone, put all the meat on a platter.  Add 1/4 cup of sweet milk to the strained broth, thicken with a couple tablespoonfuls of flour, mixed smooth with a little cold water.  Let come to a boil, and add one teaspoonful of chopped parsley.  Pour the chicken gravy over the platter containing the meat, or serve it in a separate bowl.  Or you may quickly brown the pieces of stewed chicken which have been sprinkled with flour in a pan containing a little sweet drippings or butter.  Should the chicken not be a very fat one, add yolk of one egg to the gravy.

Or, instead of stewing the chicken, place in the upper compartment of a steamer, and steam until tender and serve.  The day following that on which stewed or steamed chicken was served, small undesirable left-over pieces of the chicken were added (after being picked from the bones) to the gravy remaining from the day before, heated thoroughly and poured hot over a platter containing small baking powder biscuits broken in half or slices of toasted bread, which is economical, extending the meat flavor.

VEGETABLES—­WHITE POTATOES

Potatoes are one of the most valuable of vegetables.  White potatoes, after being pared, should be put in a stew-pan over the fire with a little boiling water, but not enough to cover them.  The water should be kept boiling continuously.  About thirty minutes from the time they commence boiling will be the time required for cooking potatoes of ordinary size.  It spoils potatoes to have the water stop boiling even for a short time.  Add half a teaspoonful of salt to the potatoes when partly boiled and when cooked sufficiently drain the water from them at once and sprinkle a little salt over the dry potatoes.  Close the lid of the stew-pan tightly, give it a quick