To dress ortolans.
SPIT them sideways, with a bay-leaf between; baste them with butter, and have fried crumbs of bread round the dish. Dress quails the same way.
To dress ruffs and reifs.
THEY are Lincolnshire birds, and you may fatten them as you do chickens, with white bread, milk and sugar: they feed fast, and will die in their fat if not killed in time: truss them cross-legged as you do a snipe, spit them the same way, but you must gut them, and you must have good gravy in the dish thickened with butter and toast under them. Serve them up quick.
To dress larks.
SPIT them on a little bird-spit, roast them; when enough, have a good many crumbs of bread fried, and throw all over them; and lay them thick round the dish.
Or they make a very pretty ragoo with fowls livers; first fry the larks and livers very nicely, then put them into some good gravy to stew, just enough for sauce, with a little red wine. Garnish with lemon.
To dress plovers.
TO two plovers take two artichoke-bottoms boiled, some chesnuts roasted and blanched, some skirrets boiled, cut all very small, mix with it some marrow or beef-suet, the yolks of two hard eggs, chop all together, season with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and a little sweet-herbs, fill the bodies of the plovers, lay them in a sauce-pan, put to them a pint of gravy, a glass of white wine, a blade or two of mace, some roasted chesnuts blanched, and artichoke-bottoms cut into quarters, two or three yolks of eggs, and a little juice of lemon; cover them close, and let them stew very softly an hour. If you find the sauce is not thick enough. take a piece of butter rolled in flour, and put into the sauce, shake it round, and when it is thick take up your plovers and pour the sauce over them. Garnish with roasted chesnuts.
Ducks are very good done this way.
Or you may roast your plovers as you do any other fowl, and have gravy-sauce in the dish.
Or boil them in a good celery-sauce, either white or brown, just as you like.
The same way you may dress wigeons.
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