young lettuces, 4 hard-boiled eggs, a few water-cresses, endive.
_Mode_.--Cut the fowl into neat joints, lay them in a deep dish, piling
them high in the centre, sauce the fowl with Mayonnaise made by recipe
No. 468, and garnish the dish with young lettuces cut in halves,
water-cresses, endive, and hard-boiled eggs: these may be sliced in
rings, or laid on the dish whole, cutting off at the bottom a piece of
the white, to make the egg stand. All kinds of cold meat and solid fish
may be dressed à la Mayonnaise, and make excellent luncheon or supper
dishes. The sauce should not be poured over the fowls until the moment
of serving. Should a very large Mayonnaise be required, use 2 fowls
instead of 1, with an equal proportion of the remaining ingredients.
_Average cost_, with one fowl, 3s. 6d.
_Sufficient_ for a moderate-sized dish.
_Seasonable_ from April to September.
[Illustration: BLACK SPANISH.]
BLACK SPANISH.--The real Spanish fowl is recognized by its
uniformly black colour burnished with tints of green; its
peculiar white face, and the large development of its comb and
wattle. The hens are excellent layers, and their eggs are of a
very large size. They are, however, bad nurses; consequently,
their eggs should be laid in the nest of other varieties to be
hatched. "In purchasing Spanish," says an authority, "blue legs,
the entire absence of white or coloured feathers in the plumage,
and a large, white face, with a very large high comb, which
should be erect in the cock, though pendent in the hens, should
be insisted on." The flesh of this fowl is esteemed; but, from
the smallness of its body when compared with that of the
Dorking, it is not placed on an equality with it for the table.
Otherwise, however, they are profitable birds, and their
handsome carriage, and striking contrast of colour in the comb,
face, and plumage, are a high recommendation to them as kept
fowls. For a town fowl, they are perhaps better adapted than any
other variety.
FOWL PILLAU, based on M. Soyer's Recipe (an Indian Dish).