Stewed Chicken

Chicken simmered with thin beef slices, carrots and onions in a red wine gravy.

Take two chickens, cut off the feet and beat the breast bones until flat, but without breaking the skin, and dredge them over with a little flour. Put a large lump of butter into a stewpan and make it hot, then put in the chickens and fry them until brown. Cut one pound of gravy beef and half a pound of beefsteak into thin slices, drain the butter out of the pan containing the fowls and cover them with the slices of beef; put in a few slices of carrot and onion, a bunch of sweet herbs, two or three cloves, a small piece of mace and a dust of pepper; pour over one quart of boiling water, cover the stewpan closely, and stew the contents for a quarter of an hour. Take out the chickens but continue boiling the meat until a rich brown gravy is formed. When the gravy is ready, strain it through a fine hair sieve, return it to the saucepan again with the chickens, add about a teaspoonful of red wine and keep it over a slow fire until the chickens are hot through again. If desired, a few mushrooms may be added, but they must be put in after the gravy is strained. Boil some thin slices of ham until slightly crisped. Put the chickens on a hot dish, pour the gravy around them. Serve garnished with the ham and sliced lemons.