Braised Chicken, Montmorency Style

Chicken cooked gently with pork, bacon and broth.

Select a couple of chickens of equal size, draw and singe them and fill the insides with a paste made of butter, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and tie them up into shape. Put a saucepan of water on the fire, and when it boils dip the breasts of the birds in for a few minutes to make the meat firm. Lard the breast with thin strips of fat pork; put the chickens into an oval-shaped saucepan with several layers of fat pork around, but not over them; add a little good, freshly made broth (for if it has not been made fresh it will turn the meat red) to moisten; place the pan on the fire and cover the lid over with hot ashes to cook the bacon quickly; when this is a good brown color the ashes may be taken off and the fowls left to cook for thirty minutes very gently. Then take them out, remove the string and dish with a financiere garnishing.