[ To boil Capons, Pullets, Chickens, Pigeons, Pheasants or Partridges.]
Searce them either with the bone or boned, then take off the skin whole, with the legs, wings, neck, and head on, mince the body with some bacon or beef suet, season
it with nutmeg, pepper, cloves, beaten ginger, salt, and a few sweet herbs finely minced and mingled amongst some three or four yolks of eggs, some sugar, whole grapes, gooseberries, barberries, and pistaches; fill the skins, and prick them up in the back, then stew them between two dishes, with some strong broth, white-wine, butter, some large mace, marrow, gooseberries and sweet herbs, being stewed, serve them on sippets, with some marrow and slic’t lemon; in winter, currans.
[ To boil a Capon or Chicken in white Broth.]
First boil the Capon in water and salt, then take three pints of strong broth, and a quart of white-wine, and stew it in a pipkin with a quarter of a pound of dates, half a pound of fine sugar, four or five blades of large mace, the marrow of three marrow bones, a handful of white endive; stew these in a pipkin very leisurely, that it may but only simmer; then being finely stewed, and the broth well tasted, strain the yolks of ten eggs with some of the broth. Before you dish up the capon or chickens, put in the eggs into the broth, and keep it stirring, that it may not curdle, give it a warm, and set it from the fire: the fowls being dished up put on the broth, and garnish the meat with dates, marrow, large mace, endive, preserved barberries, and oranges, boil’d skirrets, poungarnet, and kernels. Make a lear of almond paste and grape verjuice.
[ To boil a Capon in the Italian Fashion with Ransoles, a very excellent way.]
Take a young Capon, draw it and truss it to boil, pick it very clean, and lay it in fair water, and parboil it a little, then boil it in strong broth till it be enough, but first prepare your Ransoles as followeth: Take a good quantity of beet leaves, and boil them in fair water very tender, and
press out the water clean from them, then take six sweetbreads of veal, boil and mince them very small and the herbs also, the marrow of four or five marrow-bones, and the smallest of the marrow keep, and put it to your minced sweetbreads and herbs, and keep bigger pieces, and boil them in water by it self, to lay on the Capon, and upon the top of the dish, then take raisons of the sun ston’d, and mince them small with half a pound of dates, and a quarter of a pound of pomecitron minced small, and a pound of Naples-bisket grated, and put all these together into a great, large dish or charger, with half a pound of sweet butter, and work it with your hands into a peice of paste, and season it with a little nutmeg, cinamon, ginger, and salt, and some parmisan grated and some fine sugar also and mingle them well, then make a peice of paste of the finest flower, six yolks of raw eggs, a little saffron beaten small, half a pound of butter and a little salt, with some fair water hot, (not boiling) and make up the paste, then drive out a long sheet with a rowling pin as thin as you can possible, and lay the ingredients in small heaps, round or long on the paste, then cover them with the paste, and cut them off with a jag asunder, and make two hundred or more, and boil them in a broad kettle of strong broth, half full of liquor; and when it boils put the Ransols in one by one and let them boil a quarter of an hour; then take up the Capon into a fair large dish, and lay on the Ransoles, and stew on them grated cheese or parmisan, and Naples-bisket grated, cinamon and sugar; and thus between every lay till you have filled the dish, and pour on melted butter with a little strong broath, then the marrow, pomecitron, lemons slic’t, and serve it up; or you may fry half the Ransoles in clarified butter, &c.
[ A rare Fricase.]
Take six pigeon and six chicken-peepers, scald and truss them being drawn clean, head and all on, then set them, and have some lamb-stones and sweet-breads blanch’d, parboild and slic’t, fry most of the sweet-breads flowred; have also some asparagus ready, cut off the tops an inch long, the yolk of two hard eggs, pistaches, the marrow of six marrow-bones, half the marrow fried green, & white butter, let it be kept warm till it be almost dinner time; then have a clean frying-pan, and fry the fowl with good sweet butter, being finely fryed put out the butter, & put to them some roast mutton gravy, some large fried oysters and some salt; then put in the hard yolks of eggs, and the rest of the sweet-breads that are not fried, the pistaches, asparagus, and half the marrow: then stew them well in the frying-pan with some grated nutmeg, pepper, a clove or two of garlick if you please, a little white-wine, and let them be well stew’d. Then have ten yolks of eggs dissolved in a dish with grape-verjuice or wine-vinegar, and a little beaten mace, and put it to the frycase, then have a French six penny loaf slic’t into a fair larg dish set on coals, with some good mutton gravy, then give the frycase two or three warms on the fire, and pour it on the sops in the dish; garnish it with fried sweet-breads, fried oysters, fried marrow, pistaches, slic’t almonds and the juyce of two or three oranges.