Chickens a la Championne—Roasted

Select two very fleshy chickens of two pounds each; singe, draw and clean them, picking out all the pin feathers; truss them as for an entree, explained in the Elementary Methods (No. 178); cover the breasts with dry mirepoix (No. 419) and wrap up in a thin slice of fat pork; roast them on a spit before a slow but well-regulated fire, basting over frequently. Cut up quite fine one pound of cooked and peeled mushrooms; combine them with reduced bechamel sauce (No. 409) and finish with a little paprika and melted meat glaze (No. 402); with this preparation fill some hollow, round or semi-circular crusts (No. 52), smooth the surfaces and bestrew the tops with parmesan, then glaze them in a brisk oven or under a salamander (Fig. 123). As soon as the chickens are taken from the spit, unwrap and cut them up into five pieces each, suppressing the drumsticks; range them inside a cooked paste border (No. 10) fastened on at some distance from the edge of the dish as shown in Fig. 3; around this border lay the garnished crusts and cover the chickens lightly with a little tomato sauce (No. 549) sending a sauce-boat of the same to the table to be handed round the same time as the chicken.