76

TO BRAISE CHICKENS-TO ROAST GOOSE.

veal or mutton gravy, and a clove or two of garlic. Simmer till the chicken is quite tender. Half an hour before you serve it, rub smooth a spoonful or two of currie-powder, a spoonful of flour, and an ounce of butter: and add this, with four large spoonfuls of cream, to the stew. Salt to your taste. When serving, squeeze in a little lemon.

Slices of underdone real, or rabbit, turkey, &c., make excellent currie.

A dish of rice boiled dry must be served. For directions to do this, see the article Rice in the INDEX.

Another, more easily made.-Cut up a chicken or young rabbit: if chicken, take off the skin. Roll each piece in a mixture of a large spoonful of flour, and half an ounce of currie powder. Slice two or three onions, and fry them in butter, of a light brown: then add the meat, and fry all together till the meat begins to brown. Put it all into a stew-pan, and pour boiling water enough just to cover it. Simmer very gently two or three hours. If too thick, put more water half an hour before serving.

If the meat has been dressed before, a little broth will be better than water: but the currie is richer when made of fresh meat.

To Braise Chickens.-Bone them, and fill them with forcemeat. Lay the bones, and any other poultry trimmings, into a stew-pan, and the chickens on them. Put to them a few onions, a faggot of herbs, three blades of mace, a pint of stock, and a glass or two of sherry. Cover the chickens with slices of bacon, and then white paper; cover the whole close, and put them on a slow stove for two hours. Then take them up, strain the braise, and skim off the fat carefully set it on to boil very quick to a glaze, and do the chickens over with it with a brush.

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Serve with a brown fricassee of mushrooms. Before glazing, put the chicken into an oven for a few minutes, to give a little colour.

Ducks Roasted.-Serve with a fine gravy; and stuff one with sage and onion, a dessert-spoonful of crumbs, a bit of butter, and pepper and salt; let the other be unseasoned.

To Boil Ducks.-Choose a fine fat duck, salt it two days, then boil it slowly in a cloth. Serve it with onion sauce, but melt the butter with milk instead of water.

To Stew Ducks.-Half-roast a duck; put it into a stew-pan with a pint of beef gravy, a few leaves of sage and mint cut small, pepper and salt, and a small bit of onion shred as fine as possible. Simmer a quarter of an hour, and skim clean; then add near a quart of green peas. Cover close, and simmer near half an hour longer. Put in a piece of butter and a little flour, and give it one boil; then serve in one dish.

To Hash Ducks.-Cut a cold duck into joints, and warm it, without boiling, in gravy, and a glass of port wine.

To Roast Goose.-After it is picked, the plugs of the feathers pulled out, and the hairs carefully singed, let it be well washed

78

TO STEW GIBLETS-PIGEONS

and dried, and a seasoning put in of onion, sage, and pepper and salt. Fasten it tight at the neck and rump, and then roast. Put it first at a distance from the fire, and by degrees draw it nearer. A slip of paper should be skewered on the breast-bone. Baste it very well. When the breast is rising, take off the paper, and be careful to serve it before the breast falls, or it will be spoiled by coming flatted to table. Let a good gravy be sent in the dish. Gravy and apple sauce; gooseberry sauce for a green goose.

To Stew Giblets.-Do them as will be directed for giblet pie (under the head Pies); season them with salt and pepper and a very small piece of mace. Before serving, give them one boil with a cup of cream, and a piece of butter rubbed in a tea-spoonful of flour.

Pigeons may be dressed in so many ways, that they are very useful. The good flavour of them depends very much on their being cropped and drawn as soon as killed. No other bird requires so much washing.

Pigeons left from dinner the day before may be stewed or made into a pie; in either case, care must be taken not to overdo them, which will make them stringy. They need only be heated up in gravy made ready, and forcemeat balls may be fried and added, instead of putting a stuffing into them. If for a pie, let beef steaks be stewed in a little water, and put cold under them, and cover each pigeon with a piece of fat bacon, to keep them moist. Season as usual, and put eggs.

To Stew Pigeons.-Take care that they are quite fresh, and carefully cropped, drawn, and washed; then soak them half an hour. In the meantime cut a hard white cabbage in slices (as if for pickling) into water; drain it, and then boil it in milk and water; drain it again, and lay some of it at the bottom of a stewpan. Put the pigeons upon it, but first season them well with pepper and salt, and cover them with the remainder of the cabbage. Add a little broth, and stew gently till the pigeons are tender; then put among them two or three spoonfuls of cream, and a piece of butter and flour for thickening. After a boil or two, serve the birds in the middle, and the cabbage placed round them.

Another way.-Stew the birds in a good brown gravy, either stuffed or not; and seasoned high with spice and mushrooms fresh and a little ketchup.

To Broil Pigeons. After cleaning, split the backs, pepper and salt them and broil them very nicely; pour over them either stewed or pickled mushrooms in melted butter, and serve as hot as possible.

Roast Pigeons should be stuffed with parsley, either cut or whole, and seasoned within. Serve with parsley and butter. Peas or asparagus should be dressed to eat with them.

To Pickle Pigeons.-Bone them; turn the inside out, and lard it. Season with a little allspice and salt, in fine powder; then turn them again, and tie the neck and rump with thread. Put them into boiling water, let them boil a minute or two to plump

PIGEONS IN JELLY-TO POT PIGEONS.

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take them out, and dry them well: then put them boiling hot into the pickle, which must be made of equal quantities of white wine and white-wine vinegar, with white pepper and allspice, sliced ginger and nutmeg, and two or three bay leaves. When it boils up, put the pigeons in. If they are small, a quarter of an hour will do them; but they will take twenty minutes if large. Then take them out, wipe them, and let them cool. When the pickle is cold, take the fat off from it, and put them in again. Keep them in a stone jar, tied down with a bladder to keep out the air.

Instead of larding, put into some a stuffing made of hard yolks of eggs and marrow in equal quantities, with sweet herbs, pepper, salt, and mace.

Pigeons in Jelly.-Save some of the liquor in which a knuckle of veal has been boiled; or boil a calf's or neat's foot; put the broth into a pan with a blade of mace, a bunch of sweet herbs, some white pepper, lemon peel, a slice of lean bacon, and the pigeons. Bake them, and let them stand to get cold. Season as you like, before baking. When done take them out of the liquor, cover them close to preserve the colour, and clear the jelly by boiling it with the whites of two eggs; strain it through a thick cloth dipped in boiling water, and put into a sieve. The fat must be perfectly removed, before it be cleared. Put the jelly over and round them rough.

The same, a beautiful Dish.-Pick two very nice pigeons, and make them look as well as possible by singeing, washing, and cleaning the heads well. Leave the heads and the feet on, but clip the nails close to the claws. Roast them of a very nice brown, and when done, put a little sprig of myrtle into the bill of each. Have ready a savoury jelly, as before, and with it half-fill a bowl of a size that is proper to turn down on the dish you mean it to be served in. When the jelly and the birds are cold, see that no gravy hangs to the birds, and then lay them upside down in the jelly. Before the rest of it begins to set, pour it over the birds, so as to be three inches above the feet. This should be done full twenty-four hours before serving.

This dish has a very handsome appearance in the middle range of a second course, or when served with the jelly roughed large, it makes a side or corner dish, its size being then less. The head should be kept up as if alive, by tying the neck with some thread, and the legs bent as if the pigeon sat upon them.

To Pot Pigeons.-Let them be quite fresh, clean them carefully, and season them with salt and pepper: lay them close in a small deep pan, for the smaller the surface and the closer they are packed, the less butter will be wanted. Cover them with butter, then with very thick paper tied down, and bake them. When cold, put them dry into pots that will hold two or three in each; and pour butter over them, using that which was baked as part. Observe that the butter should be pretty thick if they are to be kept. If pigeons were boned, and then put in an oval form into the pot, they would lie closer, and require less butter. They may be stuffed with a fine forcement made with veal, bacon, &c., and

then they will eat excellently. If a high flavour is approved of, add mace, allspice, and a little Cayenne, before baking.

Larks, and other Small Birds.-Draw, and spit them on a bird-spit; tie this on another spit, and roast them. Baste gently with butter, and strew bread crumbs upon them till halfdone; brown and serve with fried crumbs round.

GAME, &c.—To Keep Game, &c.-Game ought not to be thrown away even when it has been kept a very long time; for when it seems to be spoiled, it may often be made fit for eating by nicely cleaning and washing with vinegar and water. If there is any danger of birds not keeping, draw, crop, and pick them, then wash in two or three waters, and rub them with salt. Have ready a large saucepan of boiling water, and plunge them into it one by one, drawing them up and down by the legs, that the water may pass through them. Let them stay five or six minutes in, then hang them up in a cold place. When drained, pepper and salt the insides well Before roasting, wash them well.

The most delicate birds, even grouse, may be preserved thus. Those that live by suction cannot be done this way, as they are never drawn; and pehaps the heat might make them worse, as the water could not pass through them; but they bear being high.

Lumps of charcoal put about birds and meat will preserve them from taint, and restore what is spoiling.

Pheasants and Partridges.-Roast them as turkey, and serve with a fine gravy (into which put a small bit of garlic) and bread sauce. When cold, they may be made into excellent patties, but their flavour should not be overpowered by lemon. For the manner of trussing a pheasant or partridge, see page 73.

To Pot Partridge. Clean them nicely; and season with mace, allspice, white pepper, and salt, in fine powder. Rub every part well; then lay the breasts downwards in a pan, and pack the birds as close as you possibly can. Put a good deal of butter on them; then cover the pan with a coarse flour-paste and a paper over, tie it close, and bake. When cold, put the birds into pots,

and cover them with butter.

A very Cheap Way of Potting Birds.-Prepare them as directed in the last receipt; and when baked and grown cold, cut them into proper pieces for helping, pack them close in a large potting-pot, and (if possible) leave no spaces to receive the butter. Cover them with butter, and one-third part less will be wanted than when the birds are done whole. The butter that has covered potted things will serve for basting, or for paste for meat pies.

To Clarify Butter for Potted Things.-Put it into a sauce-boat, and set that over the fire in a stew-pan that has a little water in. When melted, take care not to pour the milky parts over the potted things: they will sink to the bottom.

To Pot Moor Game.-Pick, singe, and wash the birds nicely then dry them; and season, inside and out, pretty high, with pepper, mace, nutmeg, allspice, and salt. Pack them in as

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