Harper's cook book encyclopædia

In nothing is the skill of a cook more fully displayed than in the cooking of game. Frequently it is overdone, and rendered tough and flavorless by too long standing in the oven. All large game will be found to improve by being kept a short time after being killed, but should be drawn, washed, and dried, and hung in a cool place. If the weather is warm and damp, the cavities may be filled with charcoal, which is an admirable preventative of decomposition. In very cold weather game should be brought into a warm kitchen several hours before it is to be cooked. This will be found especially necessary if frozen. Having very little natural fat, game requires frequent basting and the free use of butter in cooking. Game in Aspic -jelly. — Make as much aspic -jelly as will fill your mould. Put a little at the bottom, let it stiffen, then arrange in it the remains of cold game, cut into neat pieces, and alternately with them slices of pink ham and pieces of hardboiled eggs, leaving room for the jelly to go between the pieces. Fill up the mould with jelly, and set in a cool place. Before serving, dip the mould for a second or two in boiling water, to make it turn out more easily. Time, twelve hours to set the jelly. Game Chaudfroid. — Gut up the cold game very carefully; arrange it with equal care on a large, round dish, building up the cold game into a pyramid ; pour over all a rich sauce, which will jelly when cold. Aspicjelly, or clarified calf's - foot jelly, flavored with strong stock, are best for this. Garnish, when cold, with sliced lemon, curled lettuce, etc. Another way : — Make a good veloute sauce, strain free from grease, and add a third of the quantity of aspic - jelly ; put on the fire and boil until it thickens ; then remove the saucepan from the fire, stir in the yolks of three eggs well beaten, strain, and set away to cool ; when cool, and before it forms, spread it carefully over your pieces of cold game, being careful to cover or ice them completely; when cold arrange in a dish, and garnish with pickled mushrooms. Game Curry. — Take one or more wild birds, according to the size of the dish you require. Cut them into convenient-sized joints, rather small than large, and fry these in hot butter till lightly browned. Score the joints slightly in one or two places, place a little curry powder in each opening, and squeeze over it the juice of a lemon. Cover the joints with good brown gravy and let them Game, To Devil Game, Puree of simmer gently for twenty minutes. Allow a table-spoonful of curry powder, a dessert-spoonful of the pounded kernel of a cocoanut, a dessert-spoonful of the pulp of an acid apple, and a quarter of a pint of good gravy to every pound of meat. Simmer a quarter of an hour longer. Serve with rice around the dish.