After having prepared the bird with great nicety, divided, and flattened it, season it with salt, and pepper, or cayenne, dip it into clarified butter, and then into very fine bread-crumbs, and take care that every part shall be equally covered: if wanted of particularly good appearance dip it a second time into the butter and crumbs. Place it over a very clear fire, and broil it gently from twenty to thirty minutes. Send it to table with brown mushroom sauce, or some Espagnole.
THE FRENCH, OR RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE.
This is dressed precisely like our common partridge, and is excellent eating if it be well kept; otherwise it is tough and devoid of flavour. It does not, we believe, abound commonly in England, its hostility to the gray partridge, which it drives always from its neighbourhood, rendering it an undesirable occupant of a preserve. It was at one time, however, plentiful in Suffolk,[[94]] and in one or two of the adjoining counties, but great efforts, we have understood, have been made to exterminate it.
[94]. Brought there by the late Marquis of Hertford, to his Sudbourne estate.
TO ROAST THE LANDRAIL OR CORN-CRAKE.
This delicate and excellent bird is in its full season at the end of August and early in September, when it abounds often in the poulterers’ shops. Its plumage resembles that of the partridge, but it is of smaller size and of much more slender shape. Strip off the feathers, draw and prepare the bird as usual for the spit, truss it like a snipe, and roast it quickly at a brisk but not a fierce fire from fifteen to eighteen minutes. Dish it on fried bread-crumbs, or omit these and serve it with gravy round it, and more in a tureen, and with well made bread sauce. Three or even four of the birds will be required for a dish. One makes a nice dinner for an invalid.
TO ROAST BLACK COCK AND GRAY HEN.
In season during the same time as the common grouse, and found like them on the moors, but less abundantly.
These birds, so delicious when well kept and well roasted, are tough and comparatively flavourless when too soon dressed. They should hang therefore till they give unequivocal indication of being ready for the spit. Pick and draw them with exceeding care, as the skin is easily broken; truss them like pheasants, lay them at a moderate distance from a clear brisk fire, baste them plentifully and constantly with butter, and serve them on a thick toast which has been laid under them in the dripping-pan for the last ten minutes of their roasting, and which will have imbibed a high degree of savour: some cooks squeeze a little lemon-juice over it before it is put into the pan. Send rich brown gravy and bread sauce to table with the birds. From three quarters of an hour to a full hour will roast them. Though kept to the point which we have recommended, they will not offend even the most fastidious eater after they are dressed, as, unless they have been too long allowed to hang, the action of the fire will remove all perceptible traces of their previous state. In the earlier part of the season, when warm and close packing have rendered either black game or grouse, in their transit from the North, apparently altogether unfit for table, the chloride of soda, well-diluted, may be used with advantage to restore them to a fitting state for it; though the copious washings which must then be resorted to, may diminish something of their fine flavour.
3/4 to 1 hour.