Partridges are generally cleaned and trussed the same way as a pheasant, but the custom of cooking them with the heads on is going into disuse somewhat. The usual way of carving them is similar to a pigeon, dividing it into two equal parts. Another method is to cut it into three pieces, by severing a wing and leg on either side from the body, by following the lines 1 to 2, thus making two servings of those parts, leaving the breast for a third plate. The third method is to thrust back the body from the legs, and cut through the middle of the breast, thus making four portions that may be served. Grouse and prairie-chicken are carved from the breast when they are large, and quartered or halved when of medium size.
Wipe steak with a damp cloth. Trim off the surplus fat. When the oven has been heated for from five to seven minutes, lay steak on a rack, greased, as near the flame as possible, the position of the rack depending on the thickness of the steak. Let the steak sear on each side, thereby retaining the juice. Then lower the rack somewhat, and allow the steak to broil to the degree required. Just before taking from the oven, salt and pepper and spread with melted chicken fat. You can get just as good results in preparing chops and fish in the broiling oven.
This is an accompaniment of the Yom-tov soup described above. To each tablespoon of matzoth meal take one egg. Beat the egg separately, adding a very little ground ginger, powdered cinnamon, ground almond, pepper and salt. Now stir in the matzoth meal and make into a paste with chicken fat or clarified dripping. Form this paste into small balls and boil them for twenty minutes in the Yom-tov soup.
Peel and cook seven or eight large potatoes, place in a bowl, add salt, four whole eggs, one and one-half tablespoons of melted chicken fat and a little more than a cup of matzoth meal. Knead in bowl to smooth consistency. Take a handful at a time, pat smooth and flat, in the centre put a tablespoon of prune jam, form into a dumpling, place dumplings in boiling salt water, kettle half covered and allow to cook twelve to fifteen minutes. Take out with strainer and serve hot. Have ready a cup of hot melted chicken fat and sugar and cinnamon. Serve over knoedel to taste.
Take off the shoulder and lay it upon the gridiron with the breast; cut in two parts, to facilitate its cooking; put a tin sheet on top of the meat, and a weight upon that; turn the meat around frequently to prevent its burning; turn over as soon as cooked on one side; renew the coals occasionally, that all parts may cook alike; when done, season with butter, pepper and salt--exactly like beefsteak. It takes some time to broil it well; but when done it will be found to be equal to broiled chicken, the flavor being more delicate than when cooked otherwise. Serve with cream sauce, made as follows: Heat a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan, add a teaspoonful of flour and stir until perfectly smooth; then add, slowly stirring in, a cup of cold milk; let it boil up once, and season to taste with salt and pepper and a teaspoonful of finely chopped fresh parsley. Serve in a gravy boat, all hot.
Take a pair of fine fowls, and having cut them in pieces, lay them in salt and water till the seasoning is ready. Take two table-spoonfuls of powdered ginger, one table-spoonful of fresh turmeric, a tea-spoonful of ground black pepper; some mace, a few cloves, some cardamom seeds, and a little cayenne pepper with a small portion of salt. These last articles according to your taste. Put all into a mortar, and add to them eight large onions, chopped or cut small. Mix and beat all together, till the onions, spices, &c. form a paste. Put the chickens into a pan with sufficient butter rolled in flour, and fry them till they are brown, but not till quite done. While this is proceeding, set over the fire a sauce-pan three parts full of water, or sufficient to cover the chickens when they are ready. As soon as the water boils, throw in the curry-paste. When the paste has all dissolved, and is thoroughly mixed with the water, put in the pieces of chicken to boil, or rather to simmer. When the chicken is quite done, put it into a large dish, and eat it with boiled rice. The rice may either be laid round on the same dish, or served up separately. This is a genuine East India receipt for curry. Lamb, veal, or rabbits may be curried in the same manner. To boil Rice for the Curry. Pick the rice carefully, to clear it from husks and motes. Then soak it in cold water for a quarter of an hour, or more. When you are ready to boil it, pour off the water in which it has soaked. Have ready a pot or sauce-pan of boiling water, into which you have put a little salt. Allow two quarts of water to a pound of rice. Sprinkle the rice gradually into the water. Boil it hard for twenty minutes, then take it off the fire, and pour off all the water that remains. Set the pot in the chimney corner with the lid off, while dinner is dishing, that it may have time to dry. You may toss it up lightly with two forks, to separate the grains while it is drying, but do not stir it with a spoon.
Clean the chicken, and stuff the breast and part of the body with dressing made as follows: For a pair of chickens weighing between seven and eight pounds, take one quart of stale bread (being sure not to have any hard pieces), and break up in very fine crumbs. Add a table-spoonful of salt, a scant teaspoonful of pepper, a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, half a teaspoonful of powdered sage, one of summer savory and a scant half cupful of butter. Mix well together. This gives a rich dressing that will separate like rice when served. Now truss the chickens, and dredge well with salt. Take soft butter in the hand, and rub thickly over the chicken; then dredge rather thickly with flour. Place on the side, on the meat rack, and put into a hot oven for a few moments, that the flour in the bottom of the pan may brown. When it is browned, put in water enough to cover the pan. Baste every fifteen minutes with the gravy in the pan, and dredge with salt, pepper and flour. When one side is browned, turn, and brown the other. The last position in which the chicken should bake is on its back, that the breast may be nicely frothed and browned. The last basting is on the breast, and should be done with soft butter, and the breast should be dredged with flour. Putting the butter on the chicken at first, and then covering with flour, makes a paste, which keeps the juices in the chicken, and also supplies a certain amount of rich basting that is absorbed into the meat. It really does not take as much butter to baste poultry or game in this manner as by the old method of putting it on with a spoon after the bird began to cook. The water in the pan must often be renewed; and always be careful not to get in too much at a time. It will take an hour and a quarter to cook a pair of chickens, each weighing between three and a half and four pounds; anything larger, an hour and a half. A sure sign that they are done is the readiness of joints to separate from the body. If the chickens are roasted in the tin-kitchen, before the fire, it will take a quarter of an hour longer than in the oven. Gravy for chickens: Wash the hearts, livers, gizzards and necks and put on to boil in three pints of water; boil down to one pint. Take them all up. Put the liver on a plate, and mash fine with the back of the spoon; return it to the water in which it was boiled. Mix two table-spoonfuls of flour with half a cupful of cold water. Stir into the gravy, season well with salt and pepper, and set back where it will simmer, for twenty minutes. Take up the chickens, and take the meat rack out of the pan. Then tip the pan to one side, to bring all the gravy together. Skim off the fat. Place the pan on top of the stove and turn into it one cupful of water. Let this boil up, in the meantime scraping everything from the sides and bottom of the pan. Turn this into the made gravy, and let it all boil together while you are removing the skewers and strings from the chickens.
One fowl weighing between four and five pounds, half the rule for chopped paste (see chopped paste), three pints of water, one-fourth of a teaspoonful of pepper, one table-spoonful of salt (these last two quantities may be increased if you like), three table-spoonfuls of flour, three of butter, two eggs, one table-spoonful of onion juice and a bouquet of sweet herbs. Clean the fowl, and cut in pieces as for serving. Put it in a stew-pan with the hot water, salt, pepper and herbs. When it comes to a boil, skim, and set back where it will simmer one hour and a half. Take up the chicken, and place in a deep earthen pie dish. Draw the stew-pan forward where it will boil rapidly for fifteen minutes. Skim off the fat and take out the bouquet. Put the butter in a frying-pan, and when hot, add the flour. Stir until smooth, but not brown, and stir in the water in which the chicken was boiled. Cook ten minutes. Beat the eggs with one spoonful of cold water, and gradually add the gravy to them. Turn this into the pie dish. Lift the chicken with a spoon, that the gravy may fall to the bottom. Set away to cool. When cold, roll out a covering of paste a little larger than the top of the dish and about one-fourth of an inch thick. Cover the pie with this, having the edges turned into the dish. Roll the remainder of the paste the same as before, and with a thimble, or something as small, cut out little pieces all over the cover. Put this perforated paste over the first cover, turning out the edges and rolling slightly. Bake one hour in a moderate oven.
Cut little balls from cooked potatoes with the vegetable scoop. After all the salt has been washed from one cupful of butter (chicken fat will do instead), put this in a small frying-pan. When hot, put in as many potato balls as will cover the bottom, and fry until a golden brown. Take up, drain, and dredge with salt. Serve very hot. These balls can be cut from raw potatoes, boiled in salted water five minutes, and fried in the butter ten minutes. When boiled potatoes are used, the part left after the balls have been cut out, will answer for creamed or Lyonnaise potatoes; but when raw potatoes are used, the part left should be put into cold water until cooking time, and can be used for mashed or riced potatoes.
4 hard-boiled eggs 2 tablespoonfuls of butter 2 level tablespoonfuls of flour 1/2 pint of milk 1 cupful of finely chopped cold cooked chicken or fish 1 teaspoonful of salt 1 saltspoonful of pepper
Chop the eggs rather fine. Rub the butter and flour together, add the milk, stir until boiling, add the salt and pepper. Put a layer of eggs in the bottom of a casserole, or baking dish, then a layer of the fish or chicken, then a little white sauce, and so continue until the ingredients are used. Dust the top thickly with bread crumbs and bake in a moderate oven until nicely browned.
