Melt butter the size of an egg; when hot, add to it two or three table-spoonfuls of flour. Stir this carefully over a slow fire until it has taken a clear, light-brown color. Mix in this one half-pint of stock, broth, or gravy; then put it to the side of the fire to simmer until wanted, skimming it carefully, and not allowing it to stick to the bottom of the pan. Strain it. Just before serving it with the quails, add one or two tea-spoonfuls of Madeira.
Split them at the back. Broil, basting them often with butter, over a hot fire. As soon as the quails are done, add a little more butter, with pepper and salt, and place them for a moment into the oven to soak the butter. Serve them on thin slices of buttered toast, with a little currant-jelly on top of each quail.
Quails are sometimes braised in the same manner as pigeons. (See receipt.)
Dress and wipe them clean. Tie the legs close to the body; skin the heads and necks, and tie the beaks under the wing; tie, also, a very thin piece of bacon around the breast of each bird, and fry in boiling lard. It only requires a few moments--say two minutes--to cook them. Season and serve them on toast. Some pierce the legs with the beak of the bird, as in the cut.
The following is the epicure’s manner of cooking them, not mine. Carefully pluck them, and take the skin off the heads and necks. Truss them with the head under the wing. Twist the legs at the first joint, pressing the feet against the thigh. Do not draw them. Now tie a thin slice of bacon around each; run a small iron skewer through the birds, and tie it to a spit at both ends. Roast them at a good fire, placing a dripping-pan, with buttered slices of toast under them, to catch the trail as it falls. Baste the snipe often with a paste-brush dipped in melted butter. Let them roast twenty minutes; then salt the birds, and serve them immediately on the pieces of toast.
REED-BIRDS (_Henry Ward Beecher’s Receipt_).
Cut sweet-potatoes lengthwise; scoop out in the centre of each a place that will fit half the bird. Now put in the birds, after seasoning them with butter, pepper, and salt, tying the two pieces of potato around each of them. Bake them. Serve them in the potatoes. Or, they can be roasted or fried in boiling lard like other birds.