Dressed Game and Poultry à la Mode

by Mrs. De Salis

Roast a brace of partridges, fillet them, pound the meat from the carcases in a mortar with truffles and mushrooms; simmer the bones in some vin de Grave, with truffle trimmings, shalots, and a bayleaf, which reduce on the fire to about three-quarters the quantity; squeeze through a cloth, add two tablespoonfuls of clear stock to it, and stir half of it into the pounded meat; mix it thoroughly, and stir it until it boils; pass it through a tammy, and leave to get cold. Arrange the fillets, with a tomato cut the same shape between each one, in a circle round an entrée dish; fill the centre with the purée, cover the whole with the remainder of the sauce, and garnish with croûtons of aspic jelly.

Partridges à la Cussy.

Remove all the bones from the birds except the thigh bones and legs, stuff them with a forcemeat composed of chopped sweetbread, mushrooms, truffles, and cockscombs which have been boiled; sew up the birds to their original shape, hold them over hot coals till the breasts are quite firm, and cover them with buttered paper. Line a stewpan with a slice of ham, two or three onions, carrots, a bouquet garni, a little scraped bacon, the partridge bones which have been pounded, salt, and pepper; moisten with stock. As soon as the vegetables get soft, add the partridges, and simmer over a slow fire. When done, dish up the birds, pass the sauce through a tammy, skim off the fat, reduce, and add a few truffles or slices of mushrooms, and pour over the partridges.

Partridges with Mushrooms.

Take a brace of birds, and prepare about half a pound of button mushrooms, and place them in a stewpan with an ounce and a half of melted butter; add a slight sprinkling of salt and cayenne, and let them simmer for about nine minutes, then turn out all into a plate, and when quite cold put it into the bodies of the partridges; sew and truss them securely and roast them in the usual way, and serve either mushroom sauce round them, or they can be served up with their own gravy only, and bread sauce handed.

Partridge Pie.

Cut the breasts and legs off two or three birds, sprinkle them with pepper and salt, and cook them in the oven smothered in butter, and covered with a buttered paper. Pound the carcases, and make them into good gravy, but do not thicken it.

Take the livers of the birds with an equal quantity of calf's liver, mince both, and toss them in butter over the fire for a minute or two; then pound them in a mortar with an equal quantity of bacon, two shalots parboiled, with pepper, salt, powdered spice, and sweet herbs to taste. When well pounded, pass it through a sieve; put a layer of forcemeat into a pie-dish, arrange the pieces of partridge on it, filling up the interstices with the forcemeat; then pour in as much gravy as is required, put on the paste cover, and bake for an hour. When done, a little more boiling hot gravy may be introduced through the hole in the centre of the crust. A little melted aspic jelly may be added to the gravy.

Partridge Pudding.

Take a brace of well-kept partridges, cut them into neat joints and skin them; line a quart pudding basin with suet crust, place a thinnish slice of rump steak at the bottom of the dish cut into pieces, put in the pieces of partridge, season with pepper and salt, and pour in about a pint of good dark stock well clarified from fat, then put on the cover and boil in the usual way.