Cut a cauliflower into quarters, blanch for a few minutes, drain, and put it into a saucepan with some bits of bacon. Let it drain on paper till dry, then arrange the bits in a circle in a deep stewpan, and in the centre put a small bit of sausage, the livers of the partridges, a fowl's liver cut up, a carrot, an onion, and a bunch of herbs. Cover about three-quarters high with good stock and gravy, put butter on the top and boil gently for an hour; then take out the sausage, replace it by two or three partridges, and simmer for three-quarters of an hour. In the meantime cut a sausage in thin slices and line a mould with it. When the birds are cooked, take them out, drain and cut them up, and fill the mould with alternate layers of partridge and cauliflower, and steam for half an hour. Five minutes before serving turn the mould over on a plate, but do not take it off, so as to let all the grease drain off. Cut up the fowls' and partridges' livers, make them into scallops and glaze them. Wipe off all the grease round the mould; take it off, garnish the dish with the scallops of liver and serve hot with an Espagnole sauce (No. 1) reduced, and add a glass of Madeira or Marsala, and a glass of essence of game to it. This is an excellent way of cooking an old partridge or pheasant.
No. 146. Beccaccini alla Diplomatica (Snipe)
Ingredients: Snipe, ham, larding bacon, herbs, Marsala, croutons, truffles, cocks' combs, mushrooms, sweetbread, tongue.
Truss fourteen snipe and cook them in a mirepoix made with plenty of ham, fat bacon, herbs, and a wine glass of Marsala. When they are cooked pour off the sauce, skim off the grease and reduce it. Take the two smallest snipe and make a forcemeat of them by pounding them in a mortar with the livers of all the snipe, then dilute this with reduced Espagnole sauce (No. 1) and add it to the first sauce. Cut twelve croutons of bread just large enough to hold a snipe each, and fry them in butter. Add some chopped herbs and truffles to the forcemeat, spread it on the croutons, and on each place a snipe and cover it with a bit of fat bacon and buttered paper. Put them in a moderate oven for a few minutes, arrange them on a dish, and pour some of their own sauce over them. Garnish the spaces between the croutons with white cocks' combs, mushrooms, and truffles. The truffles should be scooped out and filled with a little stuffing of sweetbread, tongue, and truffles mixed with a little of the sauce of the snipe. Serve the rest of the sauce in a sauce-boat.
No. 147. Piccioni alla minute (Pigeons)
Ingredients: Pigeons, butter, truffles, herbs, fowls' livers, sweetbread, salt, flour, stock, Burgundy.
Prepare two pigeons and put them into a stewpan with two ounces of butter, two truffles cut up, two fowls' livers, half-pound of sweetbread cuttings (boiled), a bunch of herbs and salt. Let them brown a little, then add a dessert-spoonful of flour mixed with stock, and half a glass of Burgundy, and stew gently for half an hour.