1882—BÉCASSES ET BÉCASSINES FROIDES
All the recipes given for cold pheasant and partridge may be applied to woodcocks and snipes.
1883—QUAILS
Quails should always be chosen plump, and their fat should be white and very firm. Besides the spit, which should always be used in preference to the oven for roasting, they allow of two other methods of cooking: they may be cooked in butter, in a saucepan; or they may be poached in excellent strong and gelatinous veal stock.
This last mode of procedure greatly enhances the quail’s quality and is frequently used.
1884—CAILLES EN CASSEROLE
Cook them in butter, in the saucepan in which they will be served.
Swill with a few drops of brandy; add a little game fumet; cover, and serve very hot.
1885—CAILLES AUX CERISES
For four quails:—Truss them as for an entrée and cook them with butter in a saucepan. Swill with a little brandy and a glass of port, in which a piece of orange rind should have soaked.
Add three tablespoonfuls of excellent veal stock, three tablespoonfuls of red-currant jelly and about forty cherries, previously poached in a boiling syrup of about 18° (Saccharometer) and cooled in the syrup.
Drain them before adding them to the quail, and, if the sauce be too insipid, sharpen it with a few drops of lemon juice.
1886—CAILLES A LA DAUPHINE
Wrap each quail in a buttered vine-leaf and a thin, square slice of bacon, and roast them for ten minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare a well-seasoned purée of fresh peas with lettuce, and reduce it to a somewhat stiff consistence.
Line the bottom and sides of a deep dish with very thin slices of ham; pour the purée into it; smooth the surface, and half-plunge the quails into this purée.
Place in the oven for ten minutes, and this done, send the dish to the table immediately.
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1887—CAILLES FIGARO
Insert a piece of truffle into each quail, and wrap them each in a piece of gut together with a bit of pale veal glaze, the size of a pigeon’s egg. String the pieces of gut at two points one in. from either extremity of the quails, that the envelope may not burst while cooking. Poach the quails in good veal stock, that they may not be washed as they would be if the gut happened to burst in a poaching-liquor consisting of salted water.
Serve the quails as they leave their cooking-liquor.
1888—CAILLES A LA GRECQUE
Cook the quails in a saucepan, and set them in a timbale, half-garnished with “Riz à la Grecque.” Swill the saucepan with a few tablespoonfuls of game fumet, and pour this swilling-liquor over the quails, without clearing it of grease.
1889—CAILLES JULIETTE
Divide the quails into two along the back and do not separate the two halves; season them; sprinkle them with melted butter and finely-chopped truffle. Wrap each quail in a piece of pig’s caul; sprinkle again with melted butter and fine raspings, and grill gently.
Dish the quails and sprinkle them with a few drops of verjuice.
1890—CAILLES JUDIC
Poële the quails.
Dish them in the form of a crown, each on a small, braised lettuce, with a cock’s kidney on either side and a truffle on top. Coat with a half-glaze sauce prepared with quail fumet.
1891—CAILLES LUCULLUS
Cook the quails in butter. Dish them in a circle on a round dish, each on an oval or rectangular fried croûton, and between each set a fine truffle cooked in Champagne and chicken glaze.
1892—CAILLES A LA NORMANDE
Peel, mince and toss some apples in butter, as explained under “Faisan à la Normande.” Allow half an apple per quail. Garnish the bottom of a cocotte with some of these apples; upon them set the quails, browned in butter; add what remains of the apples; sprinkle with a few tablespoonfuls of cream, and complete the cooking in the oven.
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1893—CAILLES AUX PETITS POIS A LA ROMAINE
Cook the quails in butter. At the same time, fry in butter one small new onion and two-thirds oz. of raw, chopped ham, for each quail. Add some peas, shelled at the last moment, and cook without any moistening whatsoever.
The moisture contained in the ham and peas is sufficient for the cooking. The peas should be ready simultaneously with the quails.
Serve the quails and the peas separately, in little, closed timbales. The diner mixes them.
1894—CAILLES AUX RAISINS
Cook the quails in butter. Swill the utensil with a few drops of dry, white wine and a little verjuice; add half a tablespoonful of strong game fumet for each quail; and dish in a very hot cocotte with about one oz. of fresh peeled grapes for each quail.
1895—CAILLES RICHELIEU
Select some fresh and plump quails; remove their gizzards; season them inside with a grain of salt and a few drops of brandy; insert a piece of raw truffle into each bird, and truss them as for an entrée. Set them in a sautépan, snugly pressed one against the other, and season them with salt. Cover them with a coarse julienne of carrots, onions and celery, cooked in butter, and prepared as far as possible from new vegetables.
Moisten, just enough to cover, with some succulent amber-coloured veal stock, gelatinous and fine; cover, boil, and then poach gently for twelve minutes.
This done, add a julienne of truffles (raw if possible) which should equal only half of the vegetable julienne, and poach for a further two minutes, that the truffles may cook and the quails be done.
Dish in a timbale, clear of grease, and pour the cooking-liquor and the julienne over the quails.
Pilaff rice is often served with quails prepared in this way.
1896—RIZOTTO DE CAILLES
Into each quail insert a piece of fresh, pounded pork fat, the size of a hazel nut, combined with an equal quantity of white truffle; and cook them in a saucepan with butter.
Add their fat to a previously-prepared Rizotto. Dish this rizotto in a timbale, and hollow it out so as to make a nest for the quails.
Sprinkle the latter with the saucepan-swillings, consisting of game fumet; and send the dish to the table at once.
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1897—CAILLES SOUS LA CENDRE
Stuff the quails with a little smooth truffled game forcemeat, and wrap them each in a buttered vine-leaf, followed by a slice of bacon, and finally by two sheets of buttered paper.
Place them on the hearth-stone; cover them with very hot cinders, and cook thus for thirty-five minutes, taking care to renew the hot cinders from time to time.
When about to serve them, remove the outside covering of paper which is charred, but leave the other coverings.
N.B.—A log fire is essential for this recipe.
1898—CAILLES SOUVAROFF
Prepare these as described under “Faisan à la Souvaroff” (No. 1845).
1899—CAILLES A LA TURQUE
Truss the quails as for an entrée; brown them in butter, and complete their cooking in pilaff rice, combined with a quarter of its weight of cooked and chopped egg-plant pulp.
Set the rice in a pyramid on a dish; place the quails all round (upright against the rice), and surround with a thread of quail fumet.
1900—TIMBALE DE CAILLES ALEXANDRA
Coat a well-buttered timbale mould with patty paste, and line it with slices of bacon so as to completely cover the paste. The slices of bacon in this case are there to prevent the moistening of the timbale from reaching the paste. Insert a piece of foie gras into each quail; stiffen them in butter, and set them against the sides of the timbale in successive tiers.
Completely garnish the middle with small, peeled truffles; add one-quarter pint of excellent stock with Madeira (per six quails), and a few bits of bay-leaf. Close the timbale with a layer of paste and cook in a moderately hot oven for one and one-quarter hours.
Turn out upon withdrawing from the oven, and serve the dish as it stands.
N.B.—(1) The shell of paste merely serves to hold in the quails and their garnish, and ought not to be eaten.
(2) The same timbale may be prepared with ortolans, except that these need only forty-five minutes’ cooking.