Reed-Bird Pie

Ingredients

• a dozen birds
• a tablespoonful of butter
• a tablespoonful of flour
• a glass of wine
• a cupful of gravy
• seasoning of salt, pepper, and powdered spice

Method

1. 1

   Pluck and dress the birds, stuff them, and line a baking dish with pastry.

2. 2

   Layer the birds with flour, butter, wine, and seasonings.

3. 3

   Cover with pastry, cut steam vents, brush with beaten egg, and bake until browned.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Miss Corson's practical American cookery and household management (1885) by Juliet Corson, page 165. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

REED-BIRD PIE. Pluck and dress the birds, leaving them whole; either stuff them with veal and ham, bread-crumbs, or oysters. Line an earthen baking-dish with a nice pastry, made as directed elsewhere. Put the birds into the dish, in layers, with flour, butter, wine, or gravy, and seasonings, allowing to each dozen birds a tablespoonful each of butter and flour, a glass of wine, and a cupful of gravy, and a rather high sea- soning of salt, pepper, and powdered spice. Cover the birds with pastry, wetting the edges of the crust to make them adhere. Cut some places in the crust to permit the escape of steam while the pie is baking, brush it with beaten egg, and bake it in amoderate oven until it is nicely browned. Reed-birds may be roasted, broiled, or stewed in brown sauce. STEWED SNIPE. Pluck the birds carefully, cut off the heads nnd feet, re- move the gizzards only, and wipe- the birds on a. clean towel. For a dozen snipe put two heaping teaspoonfuls of butter in a saucepan, and let it get smoking hot, then put in the snipe, and quickly brown them. When the snipe are brown, dust over them a tablespoonful of dry flour, and stir them about until the flour is brown. When the flour is brown, cover the birds with boiling water, season them palatably with salt and pepper, and let them cook gently for fifteen SIDE-DISHES {entries). 297 minutes. Meantime, make a dozen small slices of toast; and in dishing the birds, put one on each slice, and pour a little of the sauce in which they were cooked over them. Serve the rest of the sauce in a sauce-dish. Any small birds can be cooked in this way. PRAIRIE CHICKENS STEWED WHOLE, Skin the birds, cut off the head and feet, draw them with- out breaking the intestines, and truss them so that they will be short and plump. Put them into a large saucepan with sufficient butter to prevent burning, and brown them ; when the birds are brown, add for each one a tablespoonful of dry flour, and stir them about until the flour is brown. Then put in a gill of tomato-catsup for each bird, enough boiling water to cover them, and a palatable seasoning of salt and pepper, and cook them slowly for two hours, or until they are tender. Serve the birds with their sauce and plain boiled potatoes. BOILED PARTRIDGE WITH CREAM SAUCE. Pluck, singe, and draw the birds without breaking the entrails. Wipe them with a wet towel, and put them over the fire in sufficient boiling water to cover them, with a level tablespoonful of salt ; boil them steadily and gently for fif- teen minutes. Meantime, put half a pint of thick cream in a saucepan set in a pan of boiling water, add to it a table- spoonful of butte

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.