Trim, truss, leaving the inside in, cover with fat bacon, and roast or bake for twenty minutes. Put a piece of well-buttered toast one-third of an inch thick to catch the trails. Dress grey plovers exactly the same.
Golden Plover aux Champignons.
Take three golden plover, chop up the trails with parsley, shalots, salt, pepper, and scraped bacon, and stuff the plover with it; cover the breasts with slices of bacon and roast. When done, serve on stewed mushrooms.
Fried Plover with English Truffles.
Truss three plover for roasting, lay them breast downwards in a stewpan with plenty of butter, enough to entirely cover the breasts. Put in nine or ten well-washed raw truffles pared very thin and cut into slices about the size of a florin. Add a bayleaf, pepper and salt. Stir over a brisk fire for ten minutes, then pour in a pint of stock mixed with a spoonful of flour and a glass of sherry. Simmer by side of fire for twenty minutes, skimming carefully. Dish up the birds, and then boil the sauce till it is thick and smooth, add the strained juice of a lemon, a lump of sugar, and a few drops of some XL colouring, and pour over the birds.
Stuffed Pullet.
Bone the pullet, stuff with forcemeat made with minced veal, egg, ham, onions, foie gras, and mushrooms. First warm the veal, onion, and ham in melted butter, then add the mushrooms and foie gras, moisten with stock and boil. Stir in two yolks of eggs and a teaspoonful of lemon juice before taking off the fire, season with a little salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg. After stuffing the fowl with this mixture, sew it up, turn the skin of the neck half over the head and cut off part of the comb, which will give it the appearance of a turtle's head. Blanch and singe four chickens' feet, cut off the claws and stick two where the wings ought to be and two in the thighs, so as to look like turtle's feet. Stew the pullet with a little ham, onions, and carrots, tossed previously in butter, moisten with stock, skim occasionally. When done, cut the string where it is sewn, lay it on its back in a dish, garnish the breast with sliced truffles cut in fancy shapes, and place a crayfish tail to represent the turtle's tail.
Velouté sauce may be handed with this dish, or it may be eaten cold and garnished with aspic.
Quails à la Beaconsfield.
Put, having trussed, six quails in a stewpan wrapped in slices of bacon. Moisten with two spoonfuls of stock, a bouquet garni, two bayleaves and a clove, pepper and salt to taste. Stew them for twenty minutes over a very slow fire. Drain them well, make a purée of peas in which a tablespoonful of aspic jelly has been mixed. Mask each quail with the purée, dish them in a crown shape with little rolls of bacon in front of each, have a few truffles or mushrooms cooked and placed in the centre, and pour over the quails a rich brown sauce.