PARTRIDGES PEAR FASHION—
(French dish.)—Your partridges should be fine and fat, and of the same size. For a large dish have three or four. Truss them tight and round, and rub over them a little salt and cayenne, mixed. Cut off one of the legs and leave the other on, fill them with a nice forcemeat. Make a rich paste of flour, butter, and beaten egg, using as little water as possible. Be sure to make enough of paste to cover each partridge entirely over, and roll it out evenly, and rather thick than thin. Put a sufficient portion of paste nicely round each partridge, pressing it closely and smoothly with your hand, and forming it into the shape of a large pear. Leave one leg sticking out at the top to resemble the stem, having cut off the foot. Set them in a pan, and bake them in a dutch oven. In the mean time, make in a small sauce-pan, a rich brown gravy of the livers, and other trimmings of the partridges, and some drippings of roast veal or roasted poultry. It will be better still if you reserve one or two small partridges to cut up, and stew for the gravy. Season it with a little salt and cayenne. When it has boiled long enough to be very thick and rich, take it off, strain it, and put the liquid into a clean sauce-pan. Add the juice of a large orange, made very sweet with powdered white sugar. Set it over the fire, and when it comes to a boil, stir in the beaten yolks of two eggs. Let it boil two or three minutes longer; then take it off, and keep it hot till the partridges and their paste are thoroughly well baked. When done, stand up the partridges in a deep dish, and serve up the gravy in a sauce-boat. Ornament the partridge-pears by sticking some orange leaves into the end that represents the stalk. This is a nice and handsome side dish, of French origin.
Pigeons and quails may be dressed in this manner.
SALMI OF PARTRIDGES—
(French dish.)—Having covered two large or four small partridges with very thin slices of fat cold ham, secured with twine, roast them; but see that they are not too much done. Remove the ham, skin the partridges, cut them into pieces, and let them get quite cold. Partridges that have been roasted the preceding day are good for this purpose. Cut off all the meat from the bones, season it with a little cayenne, and put it into a stew-pan. Mix together three table-spoonfuls of sweet oil, a glass of excellent wine, (either red or white,) and the grated peel and juice of an orange. Pour this gravy over the partridges, and let them stew in it during ten minutes; then add the beaten yolk of an egg, and stew it about three or four minutes longer. All the time it is stewing, continue to shake or move the pan over the fire. Serve it up hot.
ROASTED PARTRIDGES, PHEASANTS, AND QUAILS.—
Make a stuffing of fat bacon finely minced, and boiled chestnuts or grated sweet potatoe boiled, mashed, and seasoned with pepper only. Fill the birds with this. Cover them with thin slices of bacon, and wrap them well in young vine leaves. Roast them well, and serve them up in the bacon and vine leaves, to be taken off when they come to table. For company, have orange sauce to eat with them. If you roast pigeons, &c., without a covering of bacon and vine leaves, do them with egg and bread-crumbs all over.
If these birds have a bitter taste when cooked, do not eat them. It is produced by their feeding on laurel berries in winter, when their food is scarce. Laural berries are poisonous, and people have died from eating birds that have fed on them.