The "A1" cookery book

To Roast Pigeons.— Pluck, draw, and singe some young pigeons, and fill with either forcemeat or bread and butter, cut into dice. Tie thin slices of bacon over their breasts, dredge them with flour, and put them down to a clear fire ; baste with bacon fat or a little butter. They will take from twenty-five to thirty minutes to roast. For the gravy, pour into the drippingpan half a pint of boiling stock or water ; add a tablespoon of sherry and a teaspoon of the forcemeat ; season with salt, cayenne, and mace, and thicken with the yolk of an egg well beaten. Send the gravy to table in a tureen, and bread sauce in another. Serve the birds on a piece of toast. For the forcemeat, if bread and butter is not considered sufficiently tasty, mince the livers finely and mix with them the same quantity of finely sliced suet and grated bread-crumbs. Add a little pepper, salt, and mace, and a heaped tablespoon of chopped parsley, a pinch of powdered thyme, and moisten the whole with the beaten yolk of an egg. To Stew Pigeons.— Pluck, singe, and draw as many as are required, and truss as if for boiling. Stuff them with slices of bread and butter, thickly sprinkled with pepper and salt, and cut into small dice. Brown them for ten minutes in front of the fire, basting well with butter or bacon fat. Make some good gravy of the trimmings of the pigeons by putting the heads and feet (skinned) and livers into a saucepan with a little stock and three or four peppercorns and a small bunch of herbs. Put this gravy (strained) into a stew-pan and lay the pigeons in it, and stew them very gently for an hour and a half. Take out the pigeons, and keep them very hot whilst you thicken the gravy with a little browned flour, and season it with pepper and salt ; and add, if liked, a tablespoon of sherry or mushroom catsup. Ptarmigan. — Proceed as for partridges (page 66). Quails. — Pluck and draw the birds and roast before a quick fire, baste with butter and dredge with flour ; serve on toast. They take about fifteen minutes to roast. In drawing the birds reserve the liver and trail ; cook in a little butter and pound them and spread over the toast on which the birds are placed, adding a little pepper and salt. The birds can be roasted without being drawn at all, in which case take care that the toast catches whatever of the trail may fall. To Boil Rabbits. — After they are prepared put them into a saucepan with as much boiling water as will cover them ; let them boil up, skim the liquor, and simmer gently till done, which will be in about an hour. Put them on a very hot dish and cover them quite over with onion sauce (page 87). Boiled or broiled bacon may be served with them if liked. To Curry Rabbit. — Cut up a rabbit into small pieces. Chop up one onion and one apple ; put ^ lb. butter into the stew-pan and fry the onion in it ; when the onion is a nice brown, strain it out, put on a plate, and return the butter to the stew-pan. Put in the rabbit and fry a light brown; add one tablespoon curry powder, one pint stock, the chopped apple, and a little salt ; let it simmer for half an hour. Take out the rabbit, reduce the gravy by boiling fast, strain it ; add one gill of cream, the juice of half a lemon, pour over the rabbit, and serve with a dish of boiled rice.