Cassell's dictionary of cookery

— Truss two or three partridges. Put them into a stewpan with butter and a few trimmings of fat bacon ; add the necks and gizzards, and fry them on a brisk fire for five or six minutes. Withdraw them on a moderate fire, cooking them with live embers on the lid ; let them half cool, and cut each of them up into five pieces, trim the skin away, and place them in a stewpan. Fry in butter the livers of the partridges, with two chickens' livers, pound and pass them through a sieve. With the backs and trimmings of the partridges prepare a little gravy. Skim oif the fat, reduce it to half-glaze, and add to it three gills of brown sauce; let the sauce boil up, and remove it back to clarify ; skim again, and pass it through a fine sieve. With this sauce dilute gradually the puree of liver, pour it over the pieces of partridge, which warm without allowing to boil, and dish up. On the other hand, cut some bread croutons of round shape and half an inch thick, make a circular incision on one side, fry them in butter, empty them of the crumb, and fill the void with salpicon of truffles cooked, with a little madeira and a little melted glaze. Mask the partridges with this sauce, and dish the croutons all round. Salmis, Plain.— Take a cold-dressed pheasant or a couple of partridges from which little of the flesh has been cut. Divide it into neat joints free from skin, and lay these side by side in a saucepan. Put into another saucepan the well-bruised bones and trimmings of the bird, a sliced onion, a bunch of parsley, a sprig of thyme, a bay-leaf, six or eight peppercorns, a glassful of sherry, and an inch of lemon-rind. Boil for two minutes, then add a pint of stock and a spoonful of brown thickening. Simmer all gently together till the sauce is pleasantly flavoured, smooth, and of the consistency of cream. Strain it over the pieces of pheasant, and heat slowly. Warm all gently together till the sauce is on the point of boiling, then lift the jointed bird upon a dish, pour the sauce over it, garnish with fried sippets, and serve. Time, one hour or more. Suflicient for six or seven persons. Salmis Sauce. — This is a sauce for salmi of partridges, pheasants, &c. Cut four shallots and a carrot into large dice, some parsley-roots, a few bits of ham, a clove, two or three leaves of mace, the quarter of a bay-leaf, a little thyme, and a small bit of butter, with a few mushrooms. Put the whole into a stewpan over a gentle fire ; let it fry till you perceive the stewpan is coloured all round. Then moisten with half a pint of madeira and a very small lump of sugar. Let it reduce to one-half. Put in six spoonfuls of Spanish sauce, and the trimmings of the partridges. Let them stew for an hour on the corner of the stove. Skim the fat off, taste whether the sauce be seasoned enough ; strain it over the pieces, make it hot without boiling ; dish the salmi, and reduce the saiice, which strain through a tamis. Then cover the salmi with the sauce.