—Have twelve fine, fat, fresh reed-birds. Have a saucepan on the fire with one ounce of lean salt pork, cut in dice-shaped pieces; add the twelve birds. Season with one tablespoonful of salt and a heaped teaspoonful of pepper, then let them cook for five minutes; now add two tablespoonfuls of flour; mix well together, and let cook slowly until the flour has obtained a brown color, then add half a glassful of good Madeira wine and half a pint of white broth ([No. 99]). Mix well together again, and let cook for five minutes longer.
Have a dough prepared as in [No. 1078]. Butter well a tureen pie-plate, line the inside with half of the dough, a quarter of an inch thick, then transfer the reed-birds and all the rest into the lined plate, nicely arranging the birds; add twelve whole, fine, sound mushrooms, and then with the balance of the dough make a cover, and with it cover the birds and all. Beat up the yolk of one egg with a tablespoonful of water, and then with a hair brush gently glaze the surface of the cover with it. Place in the hot oven, and let cook for twenty minutes. Remove from out the oven; place the tureen on another dish, and immediately send to the table.
Robins, snipe, wild pigeons, or any other birds may be substituted for the reed-birds.
SAUCES.
1489. Sauce, Finoise.
—Have in a saucepan on the range one tablespoonful of butter, one green pepper, and one sound onion, chopped very fine; let slowly simmer for three minutes without browning, then add a heaped teaspoonful of flour, continually mix while cooking for three minutes; then add six fine, sound, red, peeled tomatoes, cut into quarters, also a gill of white broth ([No. 99]), mix well together with a wooden spoon. Season with a tablespoonful of salt and just one drop of tabasco sauce. Cook slowly for thirty minutes. Press it through a fine sieve into a bowl, so that nothing is left in the sieve but the seeds, and then it will be ready for general use.