Small birds may simply be washed and wiped dry, tied firmly, and roasted twenty minutes, dredging with flour, basting with butter and water, and adding a little currant jelly or wine to the gravy.  They may be served on toast.

FRIED CHICKEN.

Cut the chicken into nice pieces for serving.  Roll in flour, or, if preferred, in beaten egg and crumbs.  Heat a cupful of nice dripping or lard; add a teaspoonful of salt and a saltspoonful of pepper; lay in the pieces, and fry brown on each side, allowing not less than twenty minutes for the thickest pieces and ten for the thin ones.  Lay on a hot platter, and make a gravy by adding one tablespoonful of flour to the fat, stirring smooth, and adding slowly one cupful of boiling water or stock.  Strain over the chicken.  Milk or cream is often used instead of water.

BROWN FRICASSEE.

Fry one or two chickens as above, using only flour to roll them in.  Three or four slices of salt pork may be used, cutting them in bits, and frying brown, before putting in the chicken.  When fried, lay the pieces in a saucepan, and cover with warm water, adding one teaspoonful of salt and a saltspoonful of pepper.  Cover closely, and stew one hour, or longer if the chickens are old.  Take up the pieces, and thicken the gravy with one tablespoonful of flour, first stirred smooth in a little cold water.  Or the flour may be added to the fat in the pan after frying, and water enough for a thin gravy, which can all be poured into the saucepan, though with this method there is more danger of burning.  If not dark enough, color with a teaspoonful of caramel.  By adding a chopped onion fried in the fat, and a teaspoonful of curry-powder, this becomes a curry, to be served with boiled rice.

WHITE FRICASSEE.

Cut up the chicken as in brown fricassee, and stew without frying for an hour and a half, reducing the water to about one pint.  Take up the chicken on a hot platter.  Melt one tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan, and add a heaping tablespoonful of flour, stirring constantly till smooth.  Pour in slowly one cup of milk, and, as it boils and thickens, add the chicken broth, and serve.  This becomes a pot-pie by adding biscuit-crust as in rule for veal pot-pie, p. 150, and serving in the same way.  The same crust may also be used with a brown fricassee, but is most customary with a white.

CHICKEN PIE.