Part 12

Clean a pair of nice rabbits; soak in cold salt and water for an hour, to draw out the blood; put on in a large saucepan with cold water enough to cover them, salt slightly, and stew until tender. Slice into another pot half a dozen young onions, and boil in a very little water until thoroughly done. Drain off the water, and stir the onions into a gill of drawn butter, pepper to taste, and when it simmers, add the juice of a lemon. Cut off the heads of the hares, lay in a hot dish and pour over them the onion-sauce. Let the dish stand in a warm place, closely covered, five minutes before sending to table.

FRICASSEED RABBIT. (_White._) ✠

Clean two young rabbits, cut into joints, and soak in salt and water an hour. Put into a saucepan with a pint of cold water, a bunch of sweet herbs, an onion finely minced, a pinch of mace, one of nutmeg, pepper, and half a pound of fat salt pork, cut into slips. Cover, and stew until tender. Take out the rabbits and set in a dish where they will keep warm. Add to the gravy a cup of cream (or milk), two well-beaten eggs stirred in a little at a time, and a tablespoonful of butter. Boil up once—when you have thickened with flour wet in cold milk—and take the saucepan from the fire. Squeeze in the juice of a lemon, stirring all the while, and pour over the rabbits. Do not cook the head or neck.

FRICASSEED RABBIT. (_Brown._)

Cut off the head—joint, and lay in soak for an hour. Season the pieces with pepper and salt, dredge with flour, and fry in butter or nice dripping until brown. Take from the fat, lay in a saucepan, and cover with broth made of bits of veal or lamb. Add a minced onion, a great spoonful of walnut catsup, a bunch of sweet herbs, a pinch of cloves and one of allspice, half a teaspoonful of cayenne. Cover closely, and simmer for half an hour. Lay the pieces of hare in order upon a hot dish and cover to keep warm. Strain the gravy, return to the saucepan, thicken with browned flour, put in a tablespoonful of butter, squeeze in the juice of a lemon, pour over the rabbits, and send to table.

LARDED RABBIT.

Cut off the head and divide the body into joints. Lard with slips of fat pork; put into a clean hot frying-pan and fry until half done. Have ready some strained gravy made of veal or beef—the first is better; put the pieces of rabbit into a saucepan, with a bunch of sweet herbs, a minced onion, and some pepper. Stew, closely covered, half an hour, or until tender; take out the rabbits and lay in a hot covered dish. Strain the gravy, add a tablespoonful of butter, the juice of a lemon, and thicken with flour. Boil up and pour over the meat.

FRIED RABBIT.

They must be very tender for this purpose. Cut into joints; soak for an hour in salt and water; dip in beaten egg, then in powdered cracker, and fry brown in nice sweet lard or dripping. Serve with onion sauce. Garnish with sliced lemon.

BARBECUED RABBIT. ✠

Clean and wash the rabbit, which must be plump and young, and having opened it all the way on the under-side, lay it flat, with a small plate or saucer to keep it down, in salted water for half an hour. Wipe dry and broil whole, with the exception of the head, when you have gashed across the back-bone in eight or ten places that the heat may penetrate this, the thickest part. Your fire should be hot and clear, the rabbit turned often. When browned and tender, lay upon a very hot dish, pepper and salt and butter profusely, turning the rabbit over and over to soak up the melted butter. Cover and set in the oven for five minutes, and heat in a tin cup two tablespoonfuls of vinegar seasoned with one of made mustard. Anoint the hot rabbit well with this, cover and send to table garnished with crisped parsley.

The odor of this barbecue is most appetizing, and the taste not a whit inferior.

RABBIT PIE.

Cut a pair of rabbits into eight pieces each, soak in salted water half an hour, and stew until half done in enough water to cover them. Cut a quarter of a pound of fat pork into slips, and boil four eggs hard. Lay some bits of pork in the bottom of a deep dish and upon these a layer of the rabbit. Upon this spread slices of boiled egg, peppered and buttered. Sprinkle, moreover, with a little powdered mace, and squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice upon each piece of meat. Proceed in this order until the dish is full, the top layer being pork. Pour in the water in which the rabbit was boiled, when you have salted it and added some lumps of butter rolled in flour. Cover with puff-paste, cut a slit in the middle, and bake one hour, laying paper over the top should it brown too fast.

SQUIRRELS.

The large gray squirrel is seldom eaten at the North, but is in great request in Virginia and other Southern States. It is generally barbecued, precisely as are rabbits; broiled, fricasseed, or—most popular of all—made into a Brunswick stew. This is named from Brunswick County, Virginia, and is a famous dish—or was—at the political and social pic-nics known as barbecues. I am happy to be able to give a receipt for this stew that is genuine and explicit, and for which I am indebted to a Virginia housekeeper.

BRUNSWICK STEW. ✠

2 squirrels—3, if small. 1 quart of tomatoes—peeled and sliced. 1 pint butter-beans, or Lima. 6 potatoes—parboiled and sliced. 6 ears of green corn cut from the cob. ½ lb. butter. ½ lb. fat salt pork. 1 teaspoonful ground black pepper. Half a teaspoonful cayenne. 1 gallon water. 1 tablespoonful salt. 2 teaspoonfuls white sugar. 1 onion, minced small.

Put on the water with the salt in it, and boil five minutes. Put in the onion, beans, corn, pork or bacon cut into shreds, potatoes, pepper, and the squirrels, which must first be cut into joints and laid in cold salt and water to draw out the blood. Cover closely and stew two and a half hours very slowly, stirring frequently from the bottom. Then add the tomatoes and sugar, and stew an hour longer. Ten minutes before you take it from the fire add the butter, cut into bits the size of a walnut, rolled in flour. Give a final boil, taste to see that it is seasoned to your liking, and turn into a soup-tureen. It is eaten from soup-plates. Chickens may be substituted for squirrels.

RAGOÛT OF SQUIRRELS.

Skin, clean, and quarter a pair of fine young squirrels, and soak in salt and water to draw out the blood. Slice an onion and fry brown in a tablespoonful of butter. Stir into the frying-pan five tablespoonfuls of boiling water, and thicken with two teaspoonfuls of browned flour. Put the squirrels into a saucepan, with a quarter of a pound of bacon cut into slips; season with pepper and salt to taste, add the onion and gravy, and half a cupful of tepid water. Cover and stew for forty minutes, or until tender; pour in a glass of wine and the juice of half a lemon, shake around well, and turn into a deep covered dish.

BROILED SQUIRRELS.

Clean and soak to draw out the blood. Wipe dry and broil over a hot, clear fire, turning often. When done, lay in a hot dish and anoint with melted butter, seasoned with pepper and salt. Use at least a tablespoonful for each squirrel, and let it lie between two hot dishes five minutes before sending to table.

PHEASANTS, PARTRIDGES, QUAILS, GROUSE, ETC.

The real pheasant is never sold in American markets. The bird known as such at the South is called a partridge at the North, and is, properly speaking, the ruffled grouse. The Northern quail is the English and Southern partridge. The wild fowls brought by the hundred dozen from the Far West to Eastern cities, and generally styled prairie-fowls, are a species of grouse. The mode of cooking all these is substantially the same.

ROAST.

Clean, truss, and stuff as you do chickens; roast at a hot fire, and baste with butter and water until brown; sprinkle with salt, dredge lightly at the last with flour to froth the birds, and serve hot. Thicken the gravy with browned flour, boil up, and serve in a boat. Wash the inside of all game—prairie-fowls in particular—with soda and water, rinsing out carefully afterward with fair water.

BROILED.

Clean, wash, and split down the back. Lay in cold water half an hour. Wipe carefully, season with salt and pepper, and broil on a gridiron over a bright fire. When done, lay in a hot dish, butter on both sides well, and serve at once.

Broiled quails are delicious and nourishing fare for invalids.

GROUSE ROASTED WITH BACON. ✠

Clean, truss, and stuff as usual. Cover the entire bird with thin slices of corned ham or pork, binding all with buttered pack-thread. Roast three-quarters of an hour, basting with butter and water three times, then with the dripping. When quite done, dish with the ham laid about the body of the bird. Skim the gravy, thicken with browned flour, season with pepper and the juice of a lemon. Boil up once.

QUAILS ROASTED WITH HAM. ✠

Proceed as with the grouse, but cover the ham or pork with a sheet of white paper, having secured the slices of meat with pack thread. Stitch the papers on, and keep them well basted with butter and water, that they may not burn. Roast three quarters of an hour, if the fire is good. Remove the papers and meat before sending to table, and brown quickly. This is the nicest way of cooking quails.

SALMI OF GAME.

Cut cold roast partridges, grouse, or quails into joints, and lay aside while you prepare the gravy. This is made of the bones, dressing, skin, and general odds and ends, after you have selected the neatest pieces of the birds. Put these—the scraps—into a saucepan, with one small onion, minced, and a bunch of sweet herbs; pour in a pint of water, and whatever gravy you may have, and stew, closely covered, for nearly an hour. A few bits of pork should be added if you have no gravy. Skim and strain, return to the fire, and add a little brown Sherry and lemon-juice, with a pinch of nutmeg; thicken with brown flour, if the stuffing has not thickened it sufficiently, boil up, and pour over the reserved meat, which should be put into another saucepan. Warm until all is smoking-hot, but do not let it boil. Arrange the pieces of bird in a symmetrical heap upon a dish, and pour the gravy over them.

GAME PIE—(_Very fine_).

This may be made of any of the birds named in the foregoing receipts. Grouse and quails together make a delightful Christmas pie. Clean and wash the birds; cut the quails in half, the grouse into four pieces. Trim off bits of the inferior portions, necks, lower ribs, etc., and put them with the giblets into a saucepan, with a pint and a half of water, if your pie requires six birds. While this is stewing make a good puff-paste and line a large pudding-dish, reserving enough for a lid half an inch thick. When the livers are tender, take them out, leaving the gravy to stew in the covered saucepan. Lard the breasts of the birds with tiny strips of salt pork, and mince a couple of slices of the same with the livers, a bunch of parsley, sweet marjoram, and thyme, also chopped fine, the juice of a lemon, pepper, and a very small shallot. Make a force-meat of this, with bread-crumbs moistened with warm milk. Put some thin strips of cold corned (not smoked) ham in the bottom of the pie, next to the crust; lay upon these pieces of the bird, peppered and buttered, then a layer of the force-meat, and so on, until you are ready for the gravy. Strain this, return to the fire, and season with pepper and a glass of wine. Heat to a boil, pour into the pie, and cover with the upper crust, cutting a slit in the middle. Ornament with pastry leaves, arranged in a wreath about the edge, and in the middle a pastry bird, with curled strips of pastry about it. This last should be baked separately and laid on when the pie is done, to cover the hole in the middle.

Bake three hours if your pie be large, covering with paper if it threaten to brown too fast.

QUAIL PIE.

Clean, truss, and stuff the birds. Loosen the joints with a penknife, but do not separate them. Parboil them for ten minutes, while you prepare a puff-paste. Line a deep dish with this; put in the bottom some shreds of salt pork or ham; next, a layer of hard-boiled eggs, buttered and peppered; then the birds, sprinkled with pepper and minced parsley. Squeeze some lemon-juice upon them, and lay upon the breasts pieces of butter rolled in flour. Cover with slices of egg, then with shred ham; pour in some of the gravy in which the quails were parboiled, and put on the lid, leaving a hole in the middle. Bake over an hour.

WILD PIGEONS. (_Stewed._) ✠

Clean and wash very carefully, then lay in salt and water for an hour. Rinse the inside with soda and water, shaking it well about in the cavity; wash out with fair water and stuff with a force-meat made of bread-crumbs and chopped salt pork, seasoned with pepper. Sew up the birds, and put on to stew in enough cold water to cover them, and allow to each a fair slice of fat bacon cut into narrow strips. Season with pepper and a pinch of nutmeg. Boil slowly in a covered saucepan until tender; take from the gravy and lay in a covered dish to keep warm. Strain the gravy, add the juice of a lemon and a tablespoonful of currant jelly, thickening with browned flour. Boil up and pour over the pigeons.

WILD-PIGEON PIE. ✠

This is made precisely as is quail pie, except that the pigeons are cut into four pieces each, and not stuffed. Parboil and lay in the dish in alternate layers with the bacon and boiled eggs. Make the gravy richer than for the quails, by the addition of a good lump of butter, rolled in flour, stirred in and boiled up to thicken before you put it on the fire. Wild pigeons are usually tougher and leaner than the tame.

WILD DUCKS.

Nearly all wild ducks are liable to have a fishy flavor, and when handled by inexperienced cooks, are sometimes uneatable from this cause. Before roasting them, guard against this by parboiling them with a small carrot, peeled, put within each. This will absorb the unpleasant taste. An onion will have the same effect; but, unless you mean to use onion in the stuffing, the carrot is preferable. In my own kitchen I usually put in the onion, considering a suspicion of garlic a desideratum in roast duck, whether wild or tame.

ROAST DUCK. (_Wild._)

Parboil as above directed; throw away the carrot or onion, lay in fresh water half an hour; stuff with bread-crumbs seasoned with pepper, salt, sage, and onion, and roast until brown and tender, basting for half the time with butter and water, then with the drippings. Add to the gravy, when you have taken up the ducks, a tablespoonful of currant jelly, and a pinch of cayenne. Thicken with browned flour and serve in a tureen.

WILD DUCKS. (_Stewed._) ✠

Parboil ten minutes, when you have drawn them, and put in a raw carrot or onion. Lay in very cold water half an hour. Cut into joints, pepper, salt, and flour them. Have ready some butter in a frying-pan, and fry them a light brown. Put them in a saucepan and cover with gravy made of the giblets, necks, and some bits of lean veal. Add a minced shallot, a bunch of sweet herbs, salt, and pepper. Cover closely and stew half an hour, or until tender. Take out the duck, strain the gravy when you have skimmed it; put in a half-cup of cream or rich milk in which an egg has been beaten, thicken with browned flour, add a tablespoonful of wine and the juice of half a lemon, beaten in gradually not to curdle the cream; boil up and pour over the ducks. This is about the best way of cooking wild ducks.

WILD TURKEY.

This stately stalker of Southern forests and Western prairies is eagerly sought after by the lovers of good eating in those regions. The dark meat and game flavor proclaim his birthright of lordly freedom as truly after he is slain and cooked, as did his lithe grace of figure, lofty carriage, and bright eye while he trod his native wilds. I have heard sportsmen declare that when they have inveigled him up to a blind by imitating the call of his harem or younglings, they have stood in covert, gun at shoulder and finger on the trigger, spell-bound by pitying admiration of his beauty. But I have never seen that sensibility curbed appetite while they told the story at the table adorned by the royal bird; have noted, indeed, that their mouths watered rather than their eyes, as he crumbled, like a dissolving view, under the blade of the carver.

Draw and wash the inside very carefully, as with all game. Domestic fowls are, or should be, kept up without eating for at least twelve hours before they are killed; but we must shoot wild when we can get the chance, and of course it often happens that their crops are distended by a recent hearty meal of rank or green food. Wipe the cavity with a dry soft cloth before you stuff. Have a rich force-meat, bread-crumbs, some bits of fat pork, chopped fine, pepper, and salt. Beat in an egg and a couple of tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Baste with butter and water for the first hour, then three or four times with the gravy; lastly, five or six times with melted butter. A generous and able housekeeper told me once that she always allowed a pound of butter for basting a large wild turkey. This was an extravagant quantity, but the meat is drier than that of the domestic fowl, and not nearly so fat. Dredge with flour at the last, froth with butter, and when he is of a tempting brown, serve. Skim the gravy, add a little hot water, pepper, thicken with the giblets chopped fine and browned flour, boil up, and pour into a tureen. At the South the giblets are not put in the gravy, but laid whole, one under each wing, when the turkey is dished. Garnish with small fried sausages, not larger than a dollar, crisped parsley between them.

Send around currant jelly and cranberry sauce with it.

SMALL BIRDS.

ROAST SNIPE OR PLOVERS.

Clean and truss, but do not stuff. Lay in rows in the dripping-pan, or tie upon a spit, sprinkle with salt, and baste well with butter, then with butter and water. When they begin to brown, which will be in about ten minutes, cut as many rounds of bread (without crust) as there are birds. Toast quickly, butter, and lay in the dripping-pan, a bird upon each. When the birds are done, serve upon the toast, with the gravy poured over it. The toast should lie under them while cooking at least five minutes, during which time the birds should be basted with melted butter seasoned with pepper.

The largest snipe will not require above twenty minutes to roast.

WOODCOCK.

This is the most delicious of small birds, and may be either roasted or broiled.

_Roast._

The English do not draw woodcock, regarding the _trail_ as a _bonne bouche_, and I have known American housekeepers who copied them in this respect. In this case roast precisely as you would snipe or plover, only putting the toast under the birds so soon as they begin to cook, to catch the trail.

To my taste, a better, and certainly to common sense people a less objectionable plan, is to fill the birds with a rich force-meat of bread-crumbs, peppered and salted, shortened with melted butter. Sew them up and roast, basting with butter and water, from twenty minutes to half an hour. When half done, put circular slices of buttered toast beneath, and serve upon these when you take them up.

_Broiled._

Split down the back, and broil over a clear fire. Butter, pepper, and salt when done, and let them lie between two hot dishes for five minutes before sending to table. Small snipe are nice broiled in this way; also robins and doves.

SALMI OF WOODCOCK OR SNIPE.

Clean and half-roast the birds; cut in quarters, and put in a saucepan with gravy made of the giblets, necks, and some bits of fat pork, stewed in a little water. Add a minced button onion, salt, and a pinch of cayenne, and stew fifteen minutes or until tender, closely covered. Take out the birds, and pile neatly upon buttered toast in a chafing-dish. Strain the gravy and return to the fire, adding some small pieces of butter rolled in flour, the juice of a lemon and a little wine. Boil up, and pour over the salmi.

ORTOLANS, REED-BIRDS, RAIL, AND SORA

may be roasted or broiled. A good way is to roll an oyster in melted butter, then in bread-crumbs seasoned with pepper and salt, and put into each bird before roasting. Baste with butter and water three times, put the rounds of toast underneath, and baste freely with melted butter. They will require about twenty minutes to cook, and will be found delicious.

TO KEEP GAME FROM TAINTING.

Draw so soon as they come into your possession; rinse with soda and water, then with pure cold water; wipe dry, and rub them lightly with a mixture of fine salt and black pepper. If you must keep them some time, put in the cavity of each fowl a piece of charcoal; hang them in a cool, dark place, with a cloth thrown over them. Small birds, unless there are too many of them, may be kept in a refrigerator after you have drawn, washed, and wiped them.

The charcoal is an admirable preventive of decomposition.

SAUCES FOR MEAT AND FISH.

These are no longer the appendages of the rich man’s bill of fare only. A general knowledge of made sauces, as well as the more expensive ones imported from abroad and sold here at high prices, is a part of every intelligent housekeeper’s culinary education. Few are so ignorant as to serve a fish sauce with game, or _vice versâ_. From the immense number of receipts which I have collected and examined, I have selected comparatively few but such as I consider “representative” articles. The ingenious housewife is at liberty, as I said before, elsewhere, to modify and improve upon them.

First, _par excellence_, as the most important, and because it is the groundwork of many others, I place

MELTED OR DRAWN BUTTER.

NO. 1.

2 teaspoonfuls flour. 1½ ounce butter. 1 teacupful hot water or milk. A little salt.

Put the flour and salt in a bowl, and add a little at a time of the water or milk, working it very smooth as you go on. Put into a tin cup or saucepan, and set in a vessel of boiling water. As it warms, stir, and when it has boiled a minute or more, add the butter by degrees, stirring all the time until it is entirely melted and incorporated with the flour and water. Boil one minute.

Mix with milk when you wish to use for puddings, with water for meats and fish.

NO. 2.

1½ teaspoonful of flour. 2 ounces butter. 1 teacupful (small) hot water.

Wet the flour to a thin smooth paste with cold water, and stir into the hot, which should be in the inner vessel. When it boils, add the butter by degrees, and stir until well mixed. Boil one minute.

NO. 3.

3 ounces butter. Half-pint water (hot). A beaten egg. 1 heaping teaspoonful flour.

Wet the flour to a smooth paste with a little cold milk, and add to the hot water in the inner vessel, stirring until thick. Have ready the beaten egg in a cup. Take a teaspoonful of the mixture from the fire, and beat with this until light; then another, and still another. Set aside the cup when this is done, and stir the butter into the contents of the inner saucepan gradually, until thoroughly mixed, then add the beaten egg in the same way. There is no danger of clotting the egg, if it be treated as I have described.

EGG SAUCE. ✠

3 hard-boiled eggs. A good teacupful drawn butter. A little salt.

Chop the yolks only of the eggs very fine, and beat into the hot drawn butter, salting to taste.

This is used for boiled fowls and boiled fish. For the former, you can add some minced parsley; for the latter, chopped pickles, capers, or nasturtium seed. For boiled beef, a small shallot minced fine.

_Or,_

Omit the boiled eggs, and beat up two raw ones very light, and put into the drawn butter instead, as directed in No. 3. For boiled beef or chicken, you may make the drawn butter of hot liquor taken from the pot in which the meat is cooking, having first carefully skimmed it.

SAUCE FOR BOILED OR BAKED FISH.