The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual Part 29

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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter (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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter, 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.

_Wheatears_,--(No. 81.)

Are dressed in the same way as larks.

_Lobster._--(No. 82.)

See receipt for boiling (No. 176).

We give no receipt for roasting lobster, tongue, &c. being of opinion with Dr. King, who says,

"By roasting that which our forefathers boiled, And boiling what they roasted, much is spoiled."

FOOTNOTES:

[122-*] This joint is said to owe its _name_ to king Charles the Second, who, dining upon a loin of beef, and being particularly pleased with it, asked the name of the joint; said for its merit it should be _knighted_, and henceforth called _Sir-Loin_.

[123-*] "In the present _fashion_ of FATTENING CATTLE, it is more desirable to roast away the fat than to preserve it. If the honourable societies of agriculturists, at the time they consulted a learned professor about the composition of manures, had consulted some competent authority on the nature of animal substances, the public might have escaped the overgrown corpulency of the animal flesh, which every where fills the markets."--_Domestic Management_, 12mo. 1813, p. 182.

"Game, and other wild animals proper for food, are of very superior qualities to the tame, from the total contrast of the circ.u.mstances attending them. They have a free range of exercise in the open air, and choose their own food, the good effects of which are very evident in a short, delicate texture of flesh, found only in them. Their juices and flavour are more pure, and their _fat_, when it is in any degree, as in venison, and some other instances, differs as much from that of our _fatted_ animals, as silver and gold from the grosser metals. The superiority of WELCH MUTTON and SCOTCH BEEF is owing to a similar cause."--_Ibid._, p. 150.

If there is more FAT than you think will be eaten with the meat; cut it off; it will make an excellent PUDDING (No. 554); or clarify it, (No.

84) and use it for frying: for those who like their meat done thoroughly, and use a moderate fire for roasting, the fat need not be covered with paper.

_If your beef is large_, and your family small, cut off the thin end and salt it, and cut out and dress the fillet (_i. e._ commonly called the inside) next day as MOCK HARE (No. 66*): thus you get _three good hot dinners_. See also No. 483, on made dishes. For SAUCE _for cold beef_, see No. 359, cuc.u.mber vinegar, No. 399, and horseradish vinegar, Nos.

399* and 458.

[123-+] "This joint is often spoiled for the next day's use, by an injudicious mode of carving. If you object to the outside, take the brown off, and help the next: by the cutting it only on one side, you preserve the gravy in the meat, and the goodly appearance also; by cutting it, on the contrary, down the middle of this joint, all the gravy runs out, it becomes dry, and exhibits a most unseemly aspect when brought to table a second time."--From UDE'S _Cookery_, 8vo. 1818, p.

109.

[124-*] DEAN SWIFT'S _receipt to roast mutton_.

To GEMINIANI'S beautiful air--"_Gently touch the warbling lyre_."

"Gently stir and blow the fire, Lay the mutton down to roast, Dress it quickly, I desire, In the dripping put a toast, That I hunger may remove;-- Mutton is the meat I love.

"On the dresser see it lie; Oh! the charming white and red!

Finer meat ne'er met the eye, On the sweetest gra.s.s it fed; Let the jack go swiftly round, Let me have it nicely brown'd.

"On the table spread the cloth, Let the knives be sharp and clean, Pickles get and salad both, Let them each be fresh and green.

With small beer, good ale, and wine, O, ye G.o.ds! how I shall dine!"

[124-+] See the chapter of ADVICE TO COOKS.

[125-*] _Common cooks very seldom brown the ends of necks and loins_; to have this done nicely, let the fire be a few inches longer at each end than the joint that is roasting, and occasionally place the spit slanting, so that each end may get sufficient fire; otherwise, after the meat is done, you must take it up, and put the ends before the fire.

[127-*] To MINCE or HASH VEAL see No. 511, or 511*, and to make a RAGOUT of cold veal, No. 512.

[131-*] _Priscilla Haslehurst_, in her _Housekeeper's Instructor_, 8vo.

Sheffield, 1819, p. 19, gives us a receipt "to goosify a shoulder of lamb." "Un grand Cuisinier," informed me that "_to lambify_" the leg of a porkling is a favourite metamorphosis in the French kitchen, when house lamb is very dear.

[133-*] MONS. GRIMOD designates this "_Animal modeste, ennemi du faste, et le roi des animaux immondes_." Maitland, in p. 758, of vol. ii. of his _History of London_, reckons that the number of _sucking-pigs_ consumed in the city of London in the year 1725, amounted to 52,000.

[133-+] Some _delicately sensitive_ palates desire the cook to _parboil_ the sage and onions (before they are cut), to soften and take off the rawness of their flavour; the older and drier the onion, the stronger will be its flavour; and the learned EVELYN orders these to be _edulcorated_ by gentle maceration.

[133-++] An ancient culinary sage says, "When you see a pig's eyes drop out, you may be satisfied he has had enough of the fire!" This is no criterion that the body of the pig is done enough, but arises merely from the briskness of the fire before the head of it.

[137-*] If you think the flavour of raw onions too strong, cut them in slices, and lay them in cold water for a couple of hours, or add as much apple or potato as you have of onion.

[137-+] Although the whole is rather too luscious for the lingual nerves of the good folks of Great Britain, the livers of poultry are considered a very high relish by our continental neighbours; and the following directions how to procure them in perfection, we copy from the recipe of "_un Vieil Amateur de Bonne Chere_."

"The liver of a duck, or a goose, which has submitted to the rules and orders that men of taste have invented for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his sebaceous glands, is a superlative exquisite to the palate of a Parisian epicure; but, alas! the poor goose, to produce this darling dainty, must endure sad torments. He must be crammed with meat, deprived of drink, and kept constantly before a hot fire: a miserable martyrdom indeed! and would be truly intolerable if his reflections on the consequences of his sufferings did not afford him some consolation; but the glorious prospect of the delightful growth of his liver gives him courage and support; and when he thinks how speedily it will become almost as big as his body, how high it will rank on the list of double relishes, and with what ecstasies it will be eaten by the fanciers "_des Foies gras_," he submits to his destiny without a sigh. The famous _Strasburg pies_ are made with livers thus prepared, and sell for an enormous price."

However incredible this _ordonnance_ for the obesitation of a goose's liver may appear at first sight, will it not seem equally so to after-ages, that in this enlightened country, in 1821, we encouraged a folly as much greater, as its operation was more universal? Will it be believed, that it was then considered the _acme_ of perfection in beef and mutton, that it should be so _over_-fattened, that a poor man, to obtain one pound of meat that he could eat, must purchase another which he could not, unless converted into a suet pudding: moreover, that the highest premiums were annually awarded to those who produced sheep and oxen in the most extreme stale of _morbid obesity_?!!

----"expensive plans For deluging of dripping-pans."

[141-*] This, in culinary technicals, is called _casing_ it upon the same principle that "eating, drinking, and sleeping," are termed _non-naturals_.

[141-+] Mrs. Charlotte Mason, in her "_Complete System of Cookery_,"

page 283, says, she has "tried all the different things recommended to baste a hare with, and never found any thing so good as _small beer_;"

others order _milk_; drippings we believe is better than any thing. To roast a hare nicely, so as to preserve the meat on the back, &c. juicy and nutritive, requires as much attention as a sucking-pig.

Instead of washing, a "_grand Cuisinier_" says, it is much better to wipe a hare with a thin, dry cloth, as so much washing, or indeed washing at all, takes away the flavour.

[142-*] Liver sauce, Nos. 287 and 288.