To Roast a Fowl

Ingredients

• 1 fowl
• butter
• flour
• good gravy
• bread, mushroom, egg, chestnut, or olive sauce
• fine salt
• cayenne
• 1 teaspoon really good mushroom-powder

Instructions

1. Strip off the feathers and carefully pick every stump from the skin.
2. Take off the head and neck close to the body, leaving sufficient skin to tie over the cut part.
3. When drawing the bird, open it only as much as necessary and use great care to avoid breaking the gall-bladder.
4. Hold the legs in boiling water for two or three minutes so the skin may be peeled easily.
5. Cut off the claws.
6. With a bit of lighted writing-paper, singe off the hairs without blackening the fowl.
7. Wash and wipe the fowl very dry.
8. Make the liver and gizzard delicately clean and fasten them into the pinions.
9. Truss and spit the fowl firmly.
10. Flour the fowl well when first laid to the fire.
11. Fasten buttered paper over the breast.
12. Baste the fowl frequently with butter as it roasts.
13. Roast for 1 hour if full-sized, or 25 to 35 minutes if a young chicken.
14. Remove the buttered paper about fifteen minutes before the fowl is done to allow it to take colour.
15. When done, draw out the skewers and dish the fowl.
16. Pour a little good gravy over and send to table with bread, mushroom, egg, chestnut, or olive sauce.