A guide to modern cookery

Raise the fillets and slightly flatten them; stiffen them in butter, and leave them to cool under slight pressure. This done, dip them in a Villeroy sauce, combined with chopped herbs and mushrooms, and cool them. Dip each fillet in beaten egg; roll them in bread-crumbs, and fry just before serving. Dish in a circle, and in their midst set a heap of fried parsley. Send separately a garnish of pigeon quenelles, mushrooms, and small, olive-shaped truffles, to which a half-glaze sauce flavoured with pigeon essence has been added. 1787—SUPREMES DE PIGEONNEAUX A LA SAINT-CLAIR With the meat of the legs prepare a mousseline forcemeat, and, with the latter, make some quenelles the size of small olives, and set them to poach. Poéle the breasts, without colouration, on a thick litter of sliced onions, and keep them underdone. Add a little velouté to the onions; rub them through tammy, and put the quenelles in this sauce. In the middle of a shallow croustade, set a pyramid of cépes tossed in butter. Raise the fillets; skin them, and set them on the cépes; coat them with the prepared sauce; surround with a thread of meat glaze, and place the quenelles all round. 1788—SUPREMES DE PIGEONNEAUX A LA MARIGNY Cut off the legs, and, with their meat, prepare a forcemeat. Poach the latter on a tray, and stamp it out with an oval cutter into pieces the size of the suprémes. Cover the breasts with slices of bacon, and poéle them, taking care to only just cook them. Quickly raise the suprémes, skin them, and set each upon an oval of forcemeat, sticking them on by means of a little gratin forcemeat. Put the suprémes in the oven for a moment, that this forcemeat may poach. Dish the suprémes round a pyramid consisting of a smooth purée of peas, and coat with a velouté sauce, finished with an essence prepared from the remains and the poéling-liquor of the breasts. 1789—SUPREMES DE PIGEONNEAUX AUX TRUFFES Raise the suprémes, flatten them slightly; toss them in clarified butter, and set them on a border of smooth forcemeat, GAME 56) laid on a dish by means of a piping-bag, and poached in the front of the oven. Swill the vegetable-pan with Madeira; add four fine slices of truffle for each supréme, and a little pale melted meat glaze, and finish with a moderate amount of butter. Coat the suprémes with this sauce, and set the slices of truffle upon it. 1790—MOUSSELINES DE PIGEONNEAUX A L’EPICURIENNE Prepare and poach these mousselines like the chicken ones, but make them a little smaller. Dish them in the form of a crown; set thereon a young pigeon’s fillet roasted, and in their midst arrange a garnish of peas with lettuce. Coat with a fumet prepared from the carcasses and cohered with a few tablespoonfuls of velouté. N.B.—Pigeons and squabs may also be prepared after the recipes given for chicks. VENISON AND GROUND GAME The stag (Fr. Cerf) and the fallow deer (Fr. Daim) supply the only venison that is consumed in England, where the roebuck (Fr. Chevreuil) is not held in very high esteem. True, the latter’s flesh is very often mediocre in quality, and saddles and legs of roebuck often have to be imported from the Continent when they are to appear on an important menu. On the other hand, venison derived from the stag or red deer and the fallow deer proper is generally of superior quality. The former has perhaps more flavour, but the latter, which is supplied by animals bred in herds on large private estates, has no equal as far as delicacy and tenderness are concerned, while it is covered with white and scented fat, which is greatly appreciated by English connoisseurs.