Parboil ten minutes, when you have drawn them, and put in a raw carrot or onion. Lay in very cold water half an hour. Cut into joints, pepper, salt, and flour them. Have ready some butter in a frying-pan, and fry them a light brown. Put them in a saucepan and cover with gravy made of the giblets, necks, and some bits of lean veal. Add a minced shallot, a bunch of sweet herbs, salt, and pepper. Cover closely and stew half an hour, or until tender. Take out the duck, strain the gravy when you have skimmed it; put in a half-cup of cream or rich milk in which an egg has been beaten, thicken with browned flour, add a tablespoonful of wine and the juice of half a lemon, beaten in gradually not to curdle the cream; boil up and pour over the ducks. This is about the best way of cooking wild ducks.
WILD TURKEY.
This stately stalker of Southern forests and Western prairies is eagerly sought after by the lovers of good eating in those regions. The dark meat and game flavor proclaim his birthright of lordly freedom as truly after he is slain and cooked, as did his lithe grace of figure, lofty carriage, and bright eye while he trod his native wilds. I have heard sportsmen declare that when they have inveigled him up to a blind by imitating the call of his harem or younglings, they have stood in covert, gun at shoulder and finger on the trigger, spell-bound by pitying admiration of his beauty. But I have never seen that sensibility curbed appetite while they told the story at the table adorned by the royal bird; have noted, indeed, that their mouths watered rather than their eyes, as he crumbled, like a dissolving view, under the blade of the carver.
Draw and wash the inside very carefully, as with all game. Domestic fowls are, or should be, kept up without eating for at least twelve hours before they are killed; but we must shoot wild when we can get the chance, and of course it often happens that their crops are distended by a recent hearty meal of rank or green food. Wipe the cavity with a dry soft cloth before you stuff. Have a rich force-meat, bread-crumbs, some bits of fat pork, chopped fine, pepper, and salt. Beat in an egg and a couple of tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Baste with butter and water for the first hour, then three or four times with the gravy; lastly, five or six times with melted butter. A generous and able housekeeper told me once that she always allowed a pound of butter for basting a large wild turkey. This was an extravagant quantity, but the meat is drier than that of the domestic fowl, and not nearly so fat. Dredge with flour at the last, froth with butter, and when he is of a tempting brown, serve. Skim the gravy, add a little hot water, pepper, thicken with the giblets chopped fine and browned flour, boil up, and pour into a tureen. At the South the giblets are not put in the gravy, but laid whole, one under each wing, when the turkey is dished. Garnish with small fried sausages, not larger than a dollar, crisped parsley between them.
Send around currant jelly and cranberry sauce with it.
SMALL BIRDS.
Roast Snipe or Plovers.
Clean and truss, but do not stuff. Lay in rows in the dripping-pan, or tie upon a spit, sprinkle with salt, and baste well with butter, then with butter and water. When they begin to brown, which will be in about ten minutes, cut as many rounds of bread (without crust) as there are birds. Toast quickly, butter, and lay in the dripping-pan, a bird upon each. When the birds are done, serve upon the toast, with the gravy poured over it. The toast should lie under them while cooking at least five minutes, during which time the birds should be basted with melted butter seasoned with pepper.
The largest snipe will not require above twenty minutes to roast.