Roast Chicken.

Clean the chicken, and stuff the breast and part of the body with
dressing made as follows: For a pair of chickens weighing between
seven and eight pounds, take one quart of stale bread (being sure not
to have any hard pieces), and break up in very fine crumbs. Add a
table-spoonful of salt, a scant teaspoonful of pepper, a teaspoonful
of chopped parsley, half a teaspoonful of powdered sage, one of summer
savory and a scant half cupful of butter. Mix well together. This
gives a rich dressing that will separate like rice when served. Now
truss the chickens, and dredge well with salt. Take soft butter in the
hand, and rub thickly over the chicken; then dredge rather thickly
with flour. Place on the side, on the meat rack, and put into a hot
oven for a few moments, that the flour in the bottom of the pan may
brown. When it is browned, put in water enough to cover the pan. Baste
every fifteen minutes with the gravy in the pan, and dredge with salt,
pepper and flour. When one side is browned, turn, and brown the other.
The last position in which the chicken should bake is on its back,
that the breast may be nicely frothed and browned. The last basting is
on the breast, and should be done with soft butter, and the breast
should be dredged with flour. Putting the butter on the chicken at
first, and then covering with flour, makes a paste, which keeps the
juices in the chicken, and also supplies a certain amount of rich
basting that is absorbed into the meat. It really does not take as
much butter to baste poultry or game in this manner as by the old
method of putting it on with a spoon after the bird began to cook. The
water in the pan must often be renewed; and always be careful not to
get in too much at a time. It will take an hour and a quarter to cook