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Cream of Chicken

Cut off the head, draw and neatly wipe a very small fowl. Place it in a saucepan with four quarts water, add two onions with a clove stuck in each, one leek, two branches celery, one each branch parsley and chervil, an ounce piece salt pork, and season with one and a half teaspoons salt. Cover pan and let simmer for two and a half hours, take up fowl and plunge in cold water to cool off. Take out, pull off skin, pick off meat, place in mortar with a handful boiled rice, pound to a smooth paste, remove and keep on a plate. Place one ounce butter and two ounces flour in a saucepan and stir while heating for one minute. Skim fat off surface of broth, strain into this roux pan, briskly mix with a wooden spoon until it comes to a boil, then add little by little the puree, sharply mixing while adding it. Season with a saltspoon each cayenne and grated nutmeg, mix well, then let slowly boil for thirty minutes, frequently mixing meanwhile. Strain soup through sieve into a basin, then through cheesecloth into another saucepan, let come to a boil, add one gill cream, the juice of a quarter lemon, half ounce fresh butter, and lightly mix while heating for five minutes. Pour cream into a soup tureen and serve with a plate of croutons separately.