Clean, truss, and stuff the birds. Loosen the joints with a penknife, but do not separate them. Parboil them for ten minutes, while you prepare a puff-paste. Line a deep dish with this; put in the bottom some shreds of salt pork or ham; next, a layer of hard-boiled eggs, buttered and peppered; then the birds, sprinkled with pepper and minced parsley. Squeeze some lemon-juice upon them, and lay upon the breasts pieces of butter rolled in flour. Cover with slices of egg, then with shred ham; pour in some of the gravy in which the quails were parboiled, and put on the lid, leaving a hole in the middle. Bake over an hour.
Wild Pigeons. (Stewed.) ✠
Clean and wash very carefully, then lay in salt and water for an hour. Rinse the inside with soda and water, shaking it well about in the cavity; wash out with fair water and stuff with a force-meat made of bread-crumbs and chopped salt pork, seasoned with pepper. Sew up the birds, and put on to stew in enough cold water to cover them, and allow to each a fair slice of fat bacon cut into narrow strips. Season with pepper and a pinch of nutmeg. Boil slowly in a covered saucepan until tender; take from the gravy and lay in a covered dish to keep warm. Strain the gravy, add the juice of a lemon and a tablespoonful of currant jelly, thickening with browned flour. Boil up and pour over the pigeons.
Wild-Pigeon Pie. ✠
This is made precisely as is quail pie, except that the pigeons are cut into four pieces each, and not stuffed. Parboil and lay in the dish in alternate layers with the bacon and boiled eggs. Make the gravy richer than for the quails, by the addition of a good lump of butter, rolled in flour, stirred in and boiled up to thicken before you put it on the fire. Wild pigeons are usually tougher and leaner than the tame.
WILD DUCKS.
Nearly all wild ducks are liable to have a fishy flavor, and when handled by inexperienced cooks, are sometimes uneatable from this cause. Before roasting them, guard against this by parboiling them with a small carrot, peeled, put within each. This will absorb the unpleasant taste. An onion will have the same effect; but, unless you mean to use onion in the stuffing, the carrot is preferable. In my own kitchen I usually put in the onion, considering a suspicion of garlic a desideratum in roast duck, whether wild or tame.
Roast Duck. (Wild.)
Parboil as above directed; throw away the carrot or onion, lay in fresh water half an hour; stuff with bread-crumbs seasoned with pepper, salt, sage, and onion, and roast until brown and tender, basting for half the time with butter and water, then with the drippings. Add to the gravy, when you have taken up the ducks, a tablespoonful of currant jelly, and a pinch of cayenne. Thicken with browned flour and serve in a tureen.