A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House

by Jessie Conrad

FOWLS AND GAME BIRDS

Roasting and Between Boiling

General Remarks

In roasting birds the great point is to avoid dryness.

Butter should be put into the bird as well as outside.

The fowl should never be washed with water after being trussed but wiped with a damp cloth.

On no account should a fowl intended for roasting be floured on the outside. It is an abominable practice, causing the skin to become leathery and thick.

Fowls or any birds already plucked and trussed cannot be kept for more than two days. But before trussing they may be kept hanging for three or four days providing the weather is not thundery or hot.

121. Roast Goose

Have a goose of seven or eight pounds trussed for roasting. Stuff with sage and onion stuffing (rec: [40]), butter the breast well and cook in a quick but not fierce oven for three and a half hours. Garnish with sausages.

122. Roast Duck

If not stuffed put a piece of butter inside and butter the breast liberally. Cook in a quick oven for one and a half hours. Dish as for roast fowl and serve with green peas as per recipe. If stuffed it must be cooked for one and three quarters hours.

123. Wild Duck

Put some butter inside the duck, butter the breast, and fasten a slice of very fat bacon to the breast with a skewer. Bake in a quick oven for one and a half hours. Serve garnished with parsley.

124. Roast Fowl

Put inside a properly trussed fowl about an ounce of butter and spread butter also over the breast. Do not flour your fowl. Bake in a quick oven for one and a quarter hours (roast one and a half hours). When the fowl is done lay on a dish, strain the butter out of the meat tin, boil up a little water in it to make gravy and pour over the fowl in the dish. If to be stuffed see recipe: [41].

125. Roast Pheasant

Should be cooked in the same way as chicken and served with cranberry sauce or black currant jelly. To make cranberry sauce take half a pound of cranberries, a good teacupful of powdered sugar and just cover with hot water. Boil gently for an hour. Sometimes the sugar is omitted.

126. Snipe and Quail

Snipe must not be trussed, but quail is always trussed. Butter the breasts; a quail should have a piece of butter inside as well. Bake in a quick oven for half an hour. Lay the birds on slices of thick buttered toast. Serve them on toast with red or black currant jelly.

127. Roast Partridge

Butter the breast and inside. Bake in a tin in the oven for three-quarters of an hour. Lay the bird on a thick slice of toast. Pour the fat out of the tin, boil up in it a very little water and serve the gravy thus made in a sauce boat.

The best toast for all game birds is made as follows: Remove the crust from as many pieces of bread as required. When the birds are cooked place them in another tin or dish and bring the fat in which they have been cooked to a boil on the stove. Place the slices of bread in the boiling fat and fry till they are a crisp brown.

128. Roast Pigeons

Take say two pigeons trussed for roasting. Put a good-sized piece of butter into each and liberally butter the breasts. Put into a baking tin and bake for half an hour to three-quarters. For dishing, split in halves down the breast (it will be easy if the birds are well done) and lay on hot buttered toast. Strain the fat out of the tin and put a little good meat juice into it. Stir in a little well-mixed flour and water and serve with green peas.

129. Boiled Fowl

Take a lean fowl and fasten a slice of lean bacon over the breast with a small skewer. Put into a saucepan, with enough boiling water to cover it, with an onion and a little white wine. Stew gently for an hour. Remove the fowl whole and serve with melted butter sauce as for fish without the parsley. The liquid in which it boiled should make excellent soup if you boil in it any remains of chicken carcass just for flavouring, or add some good beef stock.

130. Venison

Melt an ounce of butter or dripping in a baking tin and when hot lay in it about three pounds of venison not too fat. Bake in a fairly quick oven for two hours, basting it from time to time with the butter out of the tin. Make the gravy as for beef. Serve with red currant jelly.

131. Roast Turkey

Have ready a turkey of about seven pounds trussed for roasting. Stuff it with the best sausage meat and some truffles cut up very small. Butter the breast very liberally and bake in a quick oven for three hours. Garnish with sausages.

132. Chicken Jelly

Take an old fowl trussed and slash it well across the breast and thighs with a sharp knife. Place it in a large saucepan, cover with cold water, add a little salt, two big pieces of loaf sugar, and one whole onion. Stew gently for three hours, strain from the fowl into a deep basin, add quickly a teacupful of cold water and set it to get cold. It can be used either as chicken broth or, with the addition of a glass of good white wine, as a jelly in which to serve a young roast fowl.

133. Chicken Rissoles

Mince finely the remains of cold chicken with a slice of onion. Make a little sauce, stirring smoothly one ounce of fresh butter into a tablespoonful of flour, and pouring half a pint of boiling milk into it. Return it to the saucepan and allow it to boil (a double saucepan is best for all milk cooking); it will then thicken; put the chicken into it, with a pinch of salt. Make some deep light pastry cases and put a thick finger of larded bread into each till the pastry is cooked. If the top edge of the pastry is moistened with a little milk, the lid can be easily removed when cooked. Put the chicken mixture into the cases after removing the bread, replace the top, and serve very hot, in a meat dish.