Chicken a la Villeroi

An entree of chicken a la Villeroi arranged and dressed as in Fig. 369 can be served at the most elegant dinners. This entree is dressed on a wooden foundation with a round and slightly conical support in the center, both being covered with cooked or noodle paste (No. 142). Cook about fifteen fine, turned, very white, even sized mushroom heads. Select three good, tender chickens, not too large, but quite fleshy; when well cleaned, truss and cover over with thin slices of fat pork and "poele" them in some good stock (No. 12), keeping them quite rare; drain, untruss and cut each chicken into five pieces; first take the legs while still very hot, and quickly remove the large second joint bone; cut off the stump at two-thirds of its length and range them on a small baking tin, one beside the other, letting them cool off under a weight. Detach the upper part of the breasts from the bodies, suppress the breast bones, pare them into oblongs and also leave to cool. Remove the skin from the fillets, pare them prettily, detaching the pinion bone and cutting away the flesh from around. Trim the legs the same shape as the fillets and imitate the minion bone by the shortened stump. Dip each one of these pieces separately into a well seasoned, succulent and thick tomato sauce (No. 549) and Villeroi sauce (No. 560) mixed; return them at once to the same tin they were taken from, and leave to cool for a couple of hours; now take up the pieces one by one, detach any surplus of sauce and roll them immediately in fresh white bread-crumbs, then dip them in beaten eggs and bread-crumb once more; shake them nicely without handling them too much, and place them in a frying basket (Fig. 121); fry in very hot fat till a good color is acquired, then drain and dress the legs and fillets against the support almost upright one piece slightly overlapping the other; on the summit of the support lay a bed of fried parsley and over this the breasts pyramidically arranged; set the mushroom heads in a row around the bottom of the dish, cover over with a little of the veloute and serve the entree at once.