They may be stuffed with force-meat and roasted, basting them with butter. Cut off their heads before you send them to table.
VENISON SAUSAGES.
To six pounds of fresh-killed venison, allow two pounds of fresh fat pork. Chop the meat and mince it very fine. Add six tea-spoonfuls of sage leaves, dried and powdered, the same quantity of salt, and the same of ground black pepper. Having mixed the whole thoroughly, pack it down hard in stone jars, and keep it well covered in a cool dry place.
When wanted for use, make it into small flat cakes, and fry them.
[POULTRY, GAME, &c.]
GENERAL REMARKS.
In buying poultry choose those that are fresh and fat. Half-grown poultry is comparatively insipid; it is best when full-grown but not old. Old poultry is tough and hard. An old goose is so tough as to be frequently uneatable. When poultry is young the skin is thin and tender, and can be easily ripped by trying it with a pin; the legs are smooth; the feet moist and limber; and the eyes full and bright. The body should be thick and the breast fat. The bill and feet of a young goose are yellow, and have but few hairs on them; when old they are red and hairy.
Poultry is best when killed over night, as if cooked too soon after killing, it is hard and does not taste well. It is not the custom in America, as in some parts of Europe, to keep game, or indeed any sort of eatable, till it begins to taint; all food when inclining to decomposition being regarded by us with disgust.