Pheasant Cutlets.
Take a well-hung young pheasant, cut it when prepared into neat joints. Take out the bones carefully and shape the joints into cutlets; flatten these with the cutlet-bat, season rather highly and cover them thickly with egg and finely-grated breadcrumbs. Put the bones and trimmings into a saucepan with a carrot, a turnip, an onion, a handful of parsley, a bouquet garni, a bayleaf, pepper, salt, and as much water as will cover them. Let them stew slowly till the flavour of the herbs is drawn out, then thicken gravy and strain. Fry the cutlets in hot fat till a bright brown. Serve on a hot dish in a circle with one of the small bones stuck into each cutlet; pour the gravy round.
Galantine of Pheasant à la Mode.
Bone a pheasant, cut off the legs and press what is left of the leg inside, and cut away any sinews. Take three-quarters of a pound of sausage meat, a dozen oysters, three or four truffles, a slice of tongue, and three rashers of fat bacon. Cut the truffles into small dice, also the tongue and bacon. Mix all together with the sausage meat, adding a little cayenne pepper, half a teaspoonful of herbs mixed, half an ounce of melted gelatine, and two yolks of eggs. Mix well together, and spread over the pheasant evenly. Then roll it up lengthways and tightly in a cloth and place it in saucepan to boil for an hour, then take it out and remove the cloth carefully. To serve this dish, cut it up into thin slices and dish them in a circle, letting one piece overlap the other uniformly all round. Place a little cress salad compressed into a ball on the top, and at the base a few croûtons of aspic jelly at an equal distance apart, and a little chopped aspic between. Sprinkle a little over the salad ball at the top.
Fritôt of Crème of Pheasant.
Take eight tartlet tins, not too large, butter them, and fill about three parts full of crème of pheasant and place them in the oven for a few minutes. When quite firm to the touch, remove them from oven, and when cold dip each one into a light batter and fry in clean lard of a light brown. The batter should be made with half a pound of Vienna flour, the half of a yolk of egg, a dessertspoonful of salad oil, and a gill of pale ale. Mix all these together lightly till it will mask the point of one's finger; if too thick, add a drop or two more ale. Serve with brown or mushroom sauce. Send this dish very hot to table.
Partridge à la Crème.
See Pheasant ditto.