A guide to modern cookery

A pheasant for roasting should always be covered with slices of bacon. An excellent practice which greatly improves the bird is that of stuffing it with a piece of fresh pork fat, pounded with peelings of fresh truffles, if possible. Instead of well-pounded fresh pork fat, an equal weight of fresh butter may be used. This fatty substance impregnates the meat when it melts, and keeps the bird from becoming dry while cooking. The method also applies to partridge. Roast pheasant is generally accompanied by two trimmed half-lemons and a dish of potato chips. The gravy, which should be fat, is served in a sauceboat, and bread sauce or some bread-crumbs fried in butter are sent at the same time. 1970—FAISAN ROTI A LA PERIGOURDINE Stuff the pheasant with two oz. of pounded fresh pork fat, two oz. of foie-gras trimmings, and a similar quantity of rawtruffle parings, the whole pounded together and combined with one-half lb. of raw truffles, cut into large dice. After having covered the pheasant with slices of bacon, roast it in accordance with the directions given under Truffled Pullet. It is better, however, to cook and serve it in a cocotte. 197I—FAISAN A LA GUNZBOURG Bone two fine snipes; empty them of their intestines; fry these in butter, and crush them on a plate. Chop up the meat of the snipes, combining half its weight of cream with it, and as much butter; season with salt and pepper, and add the crushed intestines and four oz. of truffles cut into large dice. e 6 en Stuff a fine pheasant with this preparation; roast it in a casserole, or rather in a cocotte. At the last moment sprinkle with a little fumet, prepared from the snipes’ carcasses. 1972—PARTRIDGES The above recipes, dealing with pheasants, may be applied to partridges. 1973—QUAILS Select them white, very fat, and with the fat firm. Wrap them in a buttered vine-leaf and a thin slice of bacon, and roast them before a fierce fire for ten or twelve minutes. Dish on small bread-crumb croitons, fried in butter with half-lemons. Serve their gravy, which, of course, should be very short, separately. 1974—ROAST ORTOLANS Wrap each in a vine-leaf; set them on a tray, moistened with salted water, and cause them to set in a fierce oven for four or five minutes. The small amount of water lying on the bottom of the utensil produces an evaporation which prevents the ortolans’ fat from melting; consequently there is no need of slices of bacon, butter, or gravy. Each ortolan may be served in a half-lemon, shaped like a basket. N.B.—The ortolan is sufficient in itself, and it ought only to be eaten roasted. The products sometimes served as adjuncts to it, such as truffles and foie gras, are deleterious, if anything, to its quality, for they modify the delicacy of its flavour, and this modification is more particularly noticeable the more highly flavoured the adjunctive products may be. With its accompaniments it becomes a sumptuous dish, for the simple reason that it is expensive; but it does not follow that the true connoisseur will like it; it must be plainly roasted to suit him. 1975—ORTOLANS AUX QUESTCHES Cut two large questches into halves, and allow one half for each ortolan. Garnish the inside of each with a piece of butter the size of a hazel-nut; set them on a tray, and put them in the oven. When they are almost cooked, on each half of the questches place a moistened ortolan, wrapped in a vine-leaf, and bake them in a very hot oven for four minutes. Salt them when taking them out of the oven, and sprinkle them, by means of a brush, with verjuice. Serve them as they stand, but the questches are not eaten; they only serve as a support for the ortolan. 1976—ORTOLANS AU SUC D’ANANAS