For sauce, see [No. 338].
Pigeons.—(No. 78.)
When the pigeons are ready for roasting, if you are desired to stuff them, chop some green parsley very fine, the liver, and a bit of butter together, with a little pepper and salt, or with the stuffing ordered for a fillet of veal ([No. 374] or [No. 375]), and fill the belly of each bird with it. They will be done enough in about twenty or thirty minutes; send up parsley and butter ([No. 261],) in the dish under them, and some in a boat, and garnish with crisp parsley ([No. 318]), or fried bread crumbs ([No. 320]), or bread sauce ([No. 321]), or gravy ([No. 329]).
Obs.—When pigeons are fresh they have their full relish; but it goes entirely off with a very little keeping; nor is it in any way so well preserved as by roasting them: when they are put into a pie they are generally baked to rags, and taste more of pepper and salt than of any thing else.
A little melted butter may be put into the dish with them, and the gravy that runs from them will mix with it into fine sauce. Pigeons are in the greatest perfection from midsummer to Michaelmas; there is then the most plentiful and best food for them; and their finest growth is just when they are full feathered. When they are in the pen-feathers, they are flabby; when they are full grown, and have flown some time, they are tough. Game and poultry are best when they have just done growing, i. e. as soon as nature has perfected her work.
This was the secret of Solomon, the famous pigeon-feeder of Turnham Green, who is celebrated by the poet Gay, when he says,
“That Turnham Green, which dainty pigeons fed,
But feeds no more, for Solomon is dead.”
Larks and other small Birds.—(No. 80.)
These delicate little birds are in high season in November. When they are picked, gutted, and cleaned, truss them; brush them with the yelk of an egg, and then roll them in bread-crumbs: spit them on a lark-spit, and tie that on to a larger spit; ten or fifteen minutes at a quick fire will do them enough; baste them with fresh butter while they are roasting, and sprinkle them with bread-crumbs till they are well covered with them.
For the sauce, fry some grated bread in clarified butter, see [No. 259], and set it to drain before the fire, that it may harden: serve the crumbs under the larks when you dish them, and garnish them with slices of lemon.