Common Sense in the Household 28

Common Sense in the Household 28

LARDED RABBIT.

 

Cut off the head and divide the body into joints. Lard with slips of

fat pork; put into a clean hot frying-pan and fry until half done. Have

ready some strained gravy made of veal or beef—the first is better;

put the pieces of rabbit into a saucepan, with a bunch of sweet herbs,

a minced onion, and some pepper. Stew, closely covered, half an hour,

or until tender; take out the rabbits and lay in a hot covered dish.

Strain the gravy, add a tablespoonful of butter, the juice of a lemon,

and thicken with flour. Boil up and pour over the meat.

 

 

FRIED RABBIT.

 

They must be very tender for this purpose. Cut into joints; soak for an

hour in salt and water; dip in beaten egg, then in powdered cracker,

and fry brown in nice sweet lard or dripping. Serve with onion sauce.

Garnish with sliced lemon.

 

 

BARBECUED RABBIT. ✠

 

Clean and wash the rabbit, which must be plump and young, and having

opened it all the way on the under-side, lay it flat, with a small

plate or saucer to keep it down, in salted water for half an hour. Wipe

dry and broil whole, with the exception of the head, when you have

gashed across the back-bone in eight or ten places that the heat may

penetrate this, the thickest part. Your fire should be hot and clear,

the rabbit turned often. When browned and tender, lay upon a very hot

dish, pepper and salt and butter profusely, turning the rabbit over and

over to soak up the melted butter. Cover and set in the oven for five

minutes, and heat in a tin cup two tablespoonfuls of vinegar seasoned

with one of made mustard. Anoint the hot rabbit well with this, cover

and send to table garnished with crisped parsley.

 

The odor of this barbecue is most appetizing, and the taste not a whit

inferior.

 

 

RABBIT PIE.

 

Cut a pair of rabbits into eight pieces each, soak in salted water half

an hour, and stew until half done in enough water to cover them. Cut a

quarter of a pound of fat pork into slips, and boil four eggs hard. Lay

some bits of pork in the bottom of a deep dish and upon these a layer

of the rabbit. Upon this spread slices of boiled egg, peppered and

buttered. Sprinkle, moreover, with a little powdered mace, and squeeze

a few drops of lemon-juice upon each piece of meat. Proceed in this

order until the dish is full, the top layer being pork. Pour in the

water in which the rabbit was boiled, when you have salted it and added

some lumps of butter rolled in flour. Cover with puff-paste, cut a slit

in the middle, and bake one hour, laying paper over the top should it

brown too fast.

 

 

 

SQUIRRELS.

 

The large gray squirrel is seldom eaten at the North, but is in

great request in Virginia and other Southern States. It is generally

barbecued, precisely as are rabbits; broiled, fricasseed, or—most

popular of all—made into a Brunswick stew. This is named from Brunswick

County, Virginia, and is a famous dish—or was—at the political and

social pic-nics known as barbecues. I am happy to be able to give a

receipt for this stew that is genuine and explicit, and for which I am

indebted to a Virginia housekeeper.

 

 

BRUNSWICK STEW. ✠

 

2 squirrels—3, if small.

1 quart of tomatoes—peeled and sliced.

1 pint butter-beans, or Lima.

6 potatoes—parboiled and sliced.

6 ears of green corn cut from the cob.

½ lb. butter.

½ lb. fat salt pork.

1 teaspoonful ground black pepper.

Half a teaspoonful cayenne.

1 gallon water.

1 tablespoonful salt.

2 teaspoonfuls white sugar.

1 onion, minced small.

 

Put on the water with the salt in it, and boil five minutes. Put in the

onion, beans, corn, pork or bacon cut into shreds, potatoes, pepper,

and the squirrels, which must first be cut into joints and laid in cold

salt and water to draw out the blood. Cover closely and stew two and a

half hours very slowly, stirring frequently from the bottom. Then add

the tomatoes and sugar, and stew an hour longer. Ten minutes before

you take it from the fire add the butter, cut into bits the size of a

walnut, rolled in flour. Give a final boil, taste to see that it is

seasoned to your liking, and turn into a soup-tureen. It is eaten from

soup-plates. Chickens may be substituted for squirrels.

 

 

RAGOÛT OF SQUIRRELS.

 

Skin, clean, and quarter a pair of fine young squirrels, and soak in

salt and water to draw out the blood. Slice an onion and fry brown in a

tablespoonful of butter. Stir into the frying-pan five tablespoonfuls

of boiling water, and thicken with two teaspoonfuls of browned flour.

Put the squirrels into a saucepan, with a quarter of a pound of bacon

cut into slips; season with pepper and salt to taste, add the onion

and gravy, and half a cupful of tepid water. Cover and stew for forty

minutes, or until tender; pour in a glass of wine and the juice of half

a lemon, shake around well, and turn into a deep covered dish.

 

 

BROILED SQUIRRELS.

 

Clean and soak to draw out the blood. Wipe dry and broil over a hot,

clear fire, turning often. When done, lay in a hot dish and anoint

with melted butter, seasoned with pepper and salt. Use at least a

tablespoonful for each squirrel, and let it lie between two hot dishes

five minutes before sending to table.

 

 

 

PHEASANTS, PARTRIDGES, QUAILS, GROUSE, ETC.

 

The real pheasant is never sold in American markets. The bird known as

such at the South is called a partridge at the North, and is, properly

speaking, the ruffled grouse. The Northern quail is the English and

Southern partridge. The wild fowls brought by the hundred dozen from

the Far West to Eastern cities, and generally styled prairie-fowls, are

a species of grouse. The mode of cooking all these is substantially the

same.

 

 

ROAST.

 

Clean, truss, and stuff as you do chickens; roast at a hot fire, and

baste with butter and water until brown; sprinkle with salt, dredge

lightly at the last with flour to froth the birds, and serve hot.

Thicken the gravy with browned flour, boil up, and serve in a boat.

Wash the inside of all game—prairie-fowls in particular—with soda and

water, rinsing out carefully afterward with fair water.

 

 

BROILED.

 

Clean, wash, and split down the back. Lay in cold water half an hour.

Wipe carefully, season with salt and pepper, and broil on a gridiron

over a bright fire. When done, lay in a hot dish, butter on both sides

well, and serve at once.

 

Broiled quails are delicious and nourishing fare for invalids.

 

 

GROUSE ROASTED WITH BACON. ✠

 

Clean, truss, and stuff as usual. Cover the entire bird with thin

slices of corned ham or pork, binding all with buttered pack-thread.

Roast three-quarters of an hour, basting with butter and water three

times, then with the dripping. When quite done, dish with the ham laid

about the body of the bird. Skim the gravy, thicken with browned flour,

season with pepper and the juice of a lemon. Boil up once.

 

 

QUAILS ROASTED WITH HAM. ✠

 

Proceed as with the grouse, but cover the ham or pork with a sheet

of white paper, having secured the slices of meat with pack thread.

Stitch the papers on, and keep them well basted with butter and water,

that they may not burn. Roast three quarters of an hour, if the fire

is good. Remove the papers and meat before sending to table, and brown

quickly. This is the nicest way of cooking quails.

 

 

SALMI OF GAME.

 

Cut cold roast partridges, grouse, or quails into joints, and lay aside

while you prepare the gravy. This is made of the bones, dressing, skin,

and general odds and ends, after you have selected the neatest pieces

of the birds. Put these—the scraps—into a saucepan, with one small

onion, minced, and a bunch of sweet herbs; pour in a pint of water,

and whatever gravy you may have, and stew, closely covered, for nearly

an hour. A few bits of pork should be added if you have no gravy. Skim

and strain, return to the fire, and add a little brown Sherry and

lemon-juice, with a pinch of nutmeg; thicken with brown flour, if the

stuffing has not thickened it sufficiently, boil up, and pour over the

reserved meat, which should be put into another saucepan. Warm until

all is smoking-hot, but do not let it boil. Arrange the pieces of bird

in a symmetrical heap upon a dish, and pour the gravy over them.

 

 

GAME PIE—(_Very fine_).

 

This may be made of any of the birds named in the foregoing receipts.

Grouse and quails together make a delightful Christmas pie. Clean and

wash the birds; cut the quails in half, the grouse into four pieces.

Trim off bits of the inferior portions, necks, lower ribs, etc., and

put them with the giblets into a saucepan, with a pint and a half of

water, if your pie requires six birds. While this is stewing make a

good puff-paste and line a large pudding-dish, reserving enough for

a lid half an inch thick. When the livers are tender, take them out,

leaving the gravy to stew in the covered saucepan. Lard the breasts of

the birds with tiny strips of salt pork, and mince a couple of slices

of the same with the livers, a bunch of parsley, sweet marjoram, and

thyme, also chopped fine, the juice of a lemon, pepper, and a very

small shallot. Make a force-meat of this, with bread-crumbs moistened

with warm milk. Put some thin strips of cold corned (not smoked) ham in

the bottom of the pie, next to the crust; lay upon these pieces of the

bird, peppered and buttered, then a layer of the force-meat, and so on,

until you are ready for the gravy. Strain this, return to the fire,

and season with pepper and a glass of wine. Heat to a boil, pour into

the pie, and cover with the upper crust, cutting a slit in the middle.

Ornament with pastry leaves, arranged in a wreath about the edge, and

in the middle a pastry bird, with curled strips of pastry about it. This last should be baked separately and laid on when the pie is done, to cover the hole in the middle.