Roast Quails.
6 plump quails.
12 fine oysters.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
Pepper and salt, and fried bread for serving.
Clean the quails and wash out very carefully with cold water in which been dissolved a little soda. Cleanse finally with pure water and wipe dry, inside and out. Place within the body of each bird a couple of oysters or one very large one, sew it up and range all, side by side, in a baking-pan. Pour a very little boiling water over them to harden the outer skin and keep in the juices, and roast, covered, about half an hour. Then uncover and baste frequently with butter while they are browning. Serve upon rounds of fried bread, laid on a hot dish. Put a spoonful of gravy upon each, and send up the rest in a boat, when you have thickened and strained it.
If you like, you may add a glass of claret and a table-spoonful of currant jelly to the gravy after the quails are taken up.
Be careful to sew up small game with fine cotton that will not tear the meat when it is drawn out.
Fricasseed Chicken à l’Italienne (Fine).
Pair of chickens.
½ pound fat salt pork, cut into strips.
2 sprigs of parsley.
1 sprig thyme.
1 bay leaf.
A dozen mushrooms.
1 small onion.
1 clove.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 table-spoonful of salad oil.
2 glasses wine—white, or pale sherry.
Cut the chickens into joints; put them with the pork into a saucepan with a very little water, and stew, covered, until tender. Remove the chicken to a hot-water chafing-dish and keep warm while you prepare the gravy. Turn the liquor in which the chickens were cooked into a frying-pan, thicken with browned flour; put into it the herbs, onion, clove and the mushrooms chopped very fine. Boil up sharply; add the butter and stew fast half an hour. Then add the wine and oil. Simmer a few minutes, and strain through a coarse cullender over the chicken.
I have understated the merits of this admirable fricassee by styling it “fine.” The dear friend upon whose table I first saw it, will, I am sure, earn the thanks of many other housewives, with my own, by giving the receipt.