Alouettes ou Mauviettes (Larks)

These birds are generally served to the number of two or three for each person.

1929—MAUVIETTES A LA BONNE-FEMME

Proceed exactly as directed for the thrushes.

1930—MAUVIETTES A LA MÈRE MARIANNE

Slice some peeled and cored russet apples, and three-parts cook them in butter. Spread this stew in thick layers on a buttered dish.

Simply stiffen the seasoned larks in nut-brown butter, and place them upon the stewed apples, pressing them slightly into the latter. Sprinkle with very fine bread-crumbs and melted butter, and set to glaze in the oven or at the Salamander, just long enough to complete the cooking of the larks.

1931—ALOUETTES DU PÈRE PHILIPPE

Clean some fine, medium-sized potatoes, allowing one to each lark; and cut a cover from each, which thin down until it is only one-sixth inch thick. With a root-spoon, hollow out the potatoes in such wise as to allow of their each enclosing a lark.

Stiffen the larks in butter, and add thereto some salted breast of bacon, cut into small dice and _blanched_, and in the proportion of one-third oz. per lark. Place a lark in each potato, together with a few bacon dice and some of the cooking-fat; return cover of each potato to its place; fix it there by means of cotton, and wrap each potato in oiled paper.

Lay them on the hearth, cover them with hot cinders, and cook for about forty minutes, taking care to renew the cinders from time to time.

1932—MAUVIETTES FROIDES

When cold, larks may be prepared in plain chaud-froid fashion, in cases, in Belle-vue, in Aspic, as _Mousses_, &c., in pursuance of the directions given under these various recipes.

1933—ORTOLANS

Serve ortolans as plainly as possible; but the best method of preparing them is roasting. However, for the sake of variety, they may be prepared as follows:—

1934—SYLPHIDES D’ORTOLANS

Butter some very small porcelain or silver _cassolettes_, and garnish them half-full with _mousseline_ forcemeat of ortolans prepared with truffle essence.

Set these _cassolettes_ in the front of the oven, that the forcemeat may poach. Cook in butter, for three minutes only, as many ortolans as there are garnished _cassolettes_, and proceed so as to have them just ready when the forcemeat is poached.

Place an ortolan in each _cassolette_, and sprinkle them with nut-brown butter, combined with a little pale melted glaze and pineapple juice.

1935—BECS-FIGUES ET BEGUINETTES (Fig Peckers)

These birds are not met with in English markets; it is therefore useless to give the recipes concerning them. I will only say that they may be prepared like the larks.

1936—CANARDS SAUVAGES (Wild Duck)

1937—SARCELLES (Teal)

1938—PILETS (Pintails and Widgeons)

Birds of this class are mostly served roasted.

They may, however, be used in preparing excellent Salmis, which may be made after “Salmis de Faisan” (No. 1847) or after “Salmis à la Rouennaise” (No. 1763).

They may also be prepared after all the recipes of “Caneton à la Rouennaise.”

1939—PLUVIERS DORÉS (Golden Plover)

1940—VANNEAUX (Lapwings)

1941—CHEVALIERS DIVERS (Various Sandpipers)

These various birds are generally served roasted.

They may also be served “en Salmis,” but in that case the skin must be discarded in the preparation of the cullis.

They only appear on very ordinary menus, and could not be served at an important dinner.

CHAPTER XVII

ROASTS AND SALADS

In the first part of this work I explained the fundamental principles governing the treatment of Roasts, and I now have to add only a few words to what has already been said. Recipes may be consummate in detail and in accuracy, and still they will be found wanting in the matter of Roasts; for experience alone can tell the operator whether the joint he is treating be old or young, fresh or stale; whether it must be cooked quickly or slowly, and all the theories that I might advance on this subject, though perhaps they might not be useless, would at least prove impracticable nine times out of ten.

I shall not prescribe any limit of time for Roasts, except in very special cases, and even so that limit will only be approximate.

Nothing can be made precise in the matter; long practice alone, away from books, will teach it; for book-rules can only be understood when the light of practical knowledge is focussed upon them.

1942—ACCOMPANIMENT OF ROASTS

It struck me as desirable that I should give in this chapter the recipes of the various preparations which, in England, are served with Roasts:—Yorkshire Pudding, Veal Stuffing, &c. Having treated of the accompanying sauces to Roasts in Part I, I need only recall them here.

1943—YORKSHIRE PUDDING (For Beef Roasts)

Mix one-half lb. of sifted flour with six eggs and one quart of boiled milk, adding the eggs one by one and the milk little by little. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Pour this preparation into a deep baking-pan, containing some very hot dripping, and bake in the oven. If the joint be roasted on the spit, put the Yorkshire pudding under it, on taking the former out of the oven, and let it thus become saturated with the gravy and fat that fall from the roast.

Cut into squares or lozenges, and set these round the Roast or serve them separately.

1944—SAGE AND ONIONS STUFFING (For Turkeys, Ducks and Geese)

Bake four large onions in the oven with their skins on. This done, peel them and finely chop them; fry them in butter with a pinch of dry green chopped sage. Add bread-crumbs, soaked in milk and pressed, equal in weight to the onions, and half the weight of chopped veal fat.

1945—VEAL STUFFING (For Veal and Pork)

This stuffing is made from equal quantities of chopped suet, sifted bread-crumbs, and chopped parsley. Season with salt and pepper as for an ordinary forcemeat, and be liberal with the nutmeg.

Cohere this forcemeat with three small eggs per two lbs. of the above preparation.

1946—ROASTS OF BUTCHER’S MEAT

I must remind the reader of this principle, viz.: that however natural it may seem in a dinner to serve a roasted joint as a Remove, a piece of butcher’s meat must never stand as a Roast.

Roasts really only comprise _Fowl_ and _Feathered Game_, provided the menu only announces one roast. If two are announced, the second generally consists of some kind of crustacean, such as a _Lobster_, a _Spiny Lobster_ or _Crayfish_, generally served in the form of a _Mousse_; or of a preparation of foie gras, _i.e._: either a _Pâté_, a _Terrine_, a _Mousse_ or a Parfait; sometimes, too, by a very good ham or a derivative preparation thereof.