Basic Boiled Chicken

• 1 boiling chicken
• ½ lemon
• butter
• salted water or stock

Rub cleaned and trussed boiling chicken with cut side of ½ lemon and wrap it in a piece of well-buttered waxed paper to keep it a good colour. Put the chicken in boiling salted water, or better yet, a little light stock, with 1 Spanish onion stuck with cloves, and carrots, celery and bay leaf; allow it to simmer slowly until tender. Unless cooked slowly, the flesh will become hard and tasteless