1 boiling fowl
An onion stuck with 2 cloves
A clove of garlic
2 pints of water
A glass of white wine (or wine vinegar)
A cube of concentrated chicken broth
Salt and pepper
For the rice:
1 oz. chicken fat
2 lb. Italian rice
Nutmeg
An onion
Saffron
Salt and pepper
For the sauce:
1 oz. butter
2 egg yolks
¾ oz. flour
Lemon juice
Simmer the boiling fowl very gently in water to which the onion stuck with cloves, the garlic, the Knorr cube, salt, pepper and the glass of white wine have been added, with the lid on for 1-1½ hours according to the age of the fowl. (The roasting chickens we get nowadays won't need more than an hour.) When nearly cooked, hash an onion and saute it in the chicken fat in the bottom of a thick pan large enough to take the rice. Before the onion has browned, throw in the rice, turn it about in the fat, and then pour on through a strainer 1 pint of the stock in which the fowl has been cooking. Add salt, pepper and grated nutmeg and a pinch of saffron, and cook gently for 25-30 minutes, when the rice should have absorbed the stock. Put the chicken on a dish and keep it in a warm oven while the sauce is prepared with the remaining stock.
Melt the butter in a pan, stir in the flour, and keep stirring so that the roux does not brown. After a few minutes, strain the stock onto the roux, stirring while the sauce boils and thickens. Beat the egg yolks with a little milk, take the pan off the heat, and add a little sauce from the pan to the beaten yolks. Then pour this back into the sauce in the pan, stirring it over a gentle heat while it thickens, but on no account let it boil. Squeeze the juice of a lemon into it at the last moment.
Pour the sauce over the fowl, surround it with the saffron rice, and serve with green peas or courgettes simmered in butter. (The rice is very good without the addition of the saffron.)
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