Dressed Game and Poultry a la Mode.

by Harriet A. de Salis.

PREFACE.

At this the sporting season of the year, I venture to offer to the public another of my little series in the form of Dressed Game and Poultry. No doubt many of the recipes are well known, but it has been my aim to collect from _all_ the culinary preserves such recipes that from personal experience I know to be good. All the known and unknown tomes on the gourmet's art have been consulted, and I have to thank the authors for this a.s.sistance to my work, as well as those _cordons bleus_ from whom I have practically learnt some few of them.

I shall be very pleased to correspond with any of my readers who may wish to discourse on matters relative to the dinner table and its adjuncts, floral decorations among the number.

H. A. DE SALIS.

HAMPTON LEA, SUTTON, SURREY, 1888.

DRESSED GAME AND POULTRY

a LA MODE.

Blackbird Pie.

Stuff the birds with the crumb of a French roll soaked in a little milk, which put in a stewpan with 1-1/2 ounces of b.u.t.ter, a chopped shalot, some parsley, pepper, salt, a grate of nutmeg, and the yolks of two small eggs. Stir over the fire till it becomes a thick paste, and fill the insides of the birds with it. Line the bottom of the pie-dish with fried collops of rump steak, and place the birds on them neatly. Add four hard-boiled yolks of eggs, and pour gravy all over, cover with puff paste, and bake for one hour and a quarter.

Blanquette of Chicken.

Cut the meat from a cold boiled fowl, in small pieces. Stew down the bones in one pint of water, a bouquet garni, add a little salt and white pepper to taste. Then strain the stock, add to it three or four peeled mushrooms finely minced, and let them cook in this sauce; when done put in the pieces of fowl to warm through, thicken with the yolks of two eggs. Add lemon juice and serve hot.

Blanquette of Chicken aux Concombres.

Boil a chicken and cut it into neat joints. Cut a cuc.u.mber in pieces and fry in b.u.t.ter, put them in a little stock, which reduce; have reduced half a pint of veloute sauce with a few tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of cuc.u.mber in it.

Pour this through a tammy over the fowls, set it on the fire, and as soon as it bubbles add a liaison of three yolks of eggs, work in a little b.u.t.ter and lemon juice, drain the pieces of cuc.u.mber in a cloth, throw them in, and serve them in an open vol au vent, garnished with flowers of puff paste.

Capilotade of Fowl or Turkey.

Take the remains of a cold fowl or turkey, and cut it into neat joints.

Chop up three or four mushrooms, some parsley, a shalot, and a piece of b.u.t.ter the size of a walnut, and let all fry together for a short time; then moisten with a little good-flavoured stock, and thicken with flour.

Add salt to taste, let the sauce boil well, put in the pieces of bird for a few minutes; take them out, arrange them on a dish, pour the sauce over, and serve.

Chicken a la Bonne Femme.

Cut up a chicken into joints, warm up three onions and three turnips in b.u.t.ter; when brown add the pieces of fowl. Season with salt and pepper, saute over the fire for ten minutes. Then stir in two tablespoonfuls of flour, and five minutes after add a tumblerful of stock, a winegla.s.s of white wine, a bouquet of mixed herbs, and half a pound of peeled tomatoes, with all the pips carefully removed. Cook over a slow fire for twenty-five minutes, add about half a pound of mushrooms peeled and cut up to the size of a shilling, leave it on the fire for ten minutes; take out the bouquet of herbs, season with an ounce of finely-chopped parsley, dish up the pieces of chicken in a pyramid, and pour the sauce and vegetables over.

Braised Drumsticks of Chicken.

Braise the drumsticks, and arrange them uprightly in tent fashion, and all around and between the drumsticks should be finely chopped salad.

Alternate slices of tongue and ham should be placed at the edge of the salad, and the border of the dish ornamented with thin rounds of beetroot.

Chickens Chiringrate.

Cut off the feet of a chicken, break the breastbone flat, but be careful not to break the skin. Flour it and fry it in b.u.t.ter, drain all the fat out of the pan, but leave the chicken in. Make a farce from half a pound of fillet of beef, half a pound of veal, ten ounces of cooked ham, a shalot, a bouquet garni, and a piece of carrot, pepper, and salt; cook in stock, and then pa.s.s it through a sieve, and lay this farce over the chicken. After stewing the chicken for a quarter of an hour, make a rich gravy from the stock, and add a few mushrooms and two spoonfuls of port wine; boil all up well, and pour over and around the chicken.

Chicken a la Continental.

Beat up two eggs with b.u.t.ter, pepper, salt, and lemon-juice; then cut up the fowls, dip them in the egg paste, and roll them in crumbs and fried parsley. Fry in clarified dripping, and pour over the dish any white or green vegetable ragout, made hot; grate Parmesan over all.

Chicken a la Davenport.

Stuff a fowl with a forcemeat made of the hearts and livers, an anchovy, the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, one onion, a little spice, and a little shred veal-kidney fat. Sew up the neck and vent, brown the fowl in the oven, then stew it in stock till tender. Serve with white mushroom sauce.

Chicken a l'Italienne.

Pa.s.s a knife under the skin of the back, and cut out the backbone without injuring the skin or breaking off the rump, draw out the breastbone and break the merrythought; flatten the fowl and put two skewers through it. Put it into a marinade of oil, sliced onion, eschalot, parsley, thyme, and a bay leaf, spice, pepper, and salt, in which let them soak a few hours. Broil them before the fire; when done, dish the fowls, garnish them with hot pickle, serve them with a brown Italian sauce over, with a few onions in it.

Chicken a la Matador.

Cut a chicken into fillets and neat joints. Mince finely a Spanish onion and stew it with two ounces of b.u.t.ter, a few drops of lemon, pepper, and salt; when it has been stewed for half an hour, pa.s.s it through a tammy, and mix in with it a good tablespoonful of aspic jelly. Mask the chicken with this, and warm up the chicken in the bain-marie.

Fillets of Chicken a la Cardinal.

Cook some fillets of chicken in b.u.t.ter, and when done place them in a circle round an entree dish, with a mushroom between each fillet. Fill the centre with Allemagne sauce, to which has been added some lobster and crayfish b.u.t.ter to make it red. Garnish with crayfish tails if handy.

Fried Chicken a la Orly.

Cut up a chicken into joints. Season with salt, pepper, parsley, a bayleaf, and lemon juice, sprinkle with flour and fry in b.u.t.ter; dip some sliced onions into flour and fry. When done, dish up the chicken in a pyramid, garnish with the fried onions and cover with tomato sauce.

Fried Chicken a la Suisse.

Roast a chicken and cut it into fillets and neat joints. Sprinkle some finely minced herbs, mignonette pepper, and salt over them. Let them remain for an hour, then dip them in frying batter and fry. Serve with fried parsley and tomato puree.

Frica.s.see of Chicken.