Roast Duck

Epicures prefer ducks cooked rare, and when so prepared they are not stuffed. Should filling be preferred, use the potato stuffing on page 226, putting it in very hot. Many who consider that ducks have a strong flavor lay apples in the body, having them cored and quartered. The apples absorb this flavor and are removed before the duck is sent to the table. Celery and onion are also placed inside the duck to season it and improve the flavor, two table-spoonfuls of chopped onion being used to every cupful of chopped celery, which may consist of the green stalks that are not desired for the table. This stuffing is also removed from the fowl before it is sent to the table. Truss the duck, sprinkle it with salt, pepper and flour, and roast thirty minutes, provided the duck is young and is desired rare. Full-grown domestic ducks should be roasted at least an hour and basted every ten minutes.

Make the giblet gravy, and send apple sauce or grape or currant jelly to the table with the ducks. Green peas should be served with roast duck.

Wild Ducks. /

Nearly all wild ducks are apt to have a fishy flavor, and when dressed by an inexperienced cook are often unfit to eat. This flavor may be much lessened by placing in each duck a small peeled carrot, plunging the fowls in boiling water and boiling them ten minutes before roasting. The carrot will absorb the unpleasant taste. An onion will have the same effect, but unless onion is used in the stuffing, the carrot is to be preferred. When there is an objection to parboiling (which there always should be when very young ducks are to be cooked), rub the ducks lightly with an onion cut in two, and put three or four uncooked cranberries in each before cooking.

Roast Wild Duck

Clean the same as turkey, wiping both inside and out with a damp towel. After parboiling or using the cranberries, as directed, tuck back, the wings and truss the legs down close to the body. Dust the fowls with salt, pepper and flour, put a piece of butter the size of a walnut in each, place them in a baking pan, and add a cupful of water. Bake from forty-five minutes to an hour if liked well done, or thirty minutes if liked rare, basting frequently with the gravy in the pan. When done, thicken the gravy. Wild ducks are seldom stuffed when roasted.

To Cook The Mallard Wild Duck

These ducks, which are shot in the West, are considered very dry when roasted in the usual way. In Kansas they are stuffed with the common bread stuffing well sewed up and tied in shape. They are then placed in a large kettle with a couple of slices of onion and a little thyme, and a small quantity of water is added. They are cooked slowly for one hour, being turned frequently. The water should be replenished, but only enough should be added to keep the ducks from burning. A gravy is made from the juices in the kettle by adding a cupful of water to them and thickening with flour. This gravy is poured over the ducks when served. Dressed in this way all parts are equally as good as the breast, and the gravy is not the least delicious part of the whole.

Guinea Fowls

Young guinea fowls make a delicious fricassee. Clean them, and cut them in pieces the same as chickens. Place some slices of fat bacon in a frying-pan, and when these have fried long enough to extract some of the oil, add the pieces of fowl and brown them well. To every two fowls add to the pan two table-spoonfuls of flour, stir until thoroughly mixed, and then add a pint of hot water, a tea-spoonful of salt and a quarter of a tea-spoonful of pepper, stirring until the gravy boils. Cover well, and simmer in a gentle heat until the meat is tender, which is generally in an hour and a-half. Serve with the gravy from the bottom of the pan, adding more salt and pepper, if needed.

Pea Fowls

The peacock and the peahen are cooked the same as turkeys.

Pheasants, Partridges, Quail And Grouse

The real pheasant is not sold in America. The bird known by that name in the South is called a partridge in the North, but is, properly speaking, the ruffled grouse. The Northern quail is the English and Southern partridge. The wild fowls brought so plentifully from the West to Eastern cities and called prairie fowls are a species of grouse. The methods of cooking all these birds are substantially the same. They should never be washed, but simply wiped with a damp towel, all shot being carefully picked out of the flesh with a sharp-pointed knife. Partridges are cooked in forty minutes and quail in ten.

Roasted

Clean, truss and stuff the birds the same as turkey, and bake until brown, basting often with butter and water. Thicken the gravy, and pour it over the birds.

Broiled

Clean the birds and split them down the back. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, dust with flour to keep in the juices, and broil in a wire broiler, laying the inside to the fire first. When done, lay them on a warm dish, butter them on both sides, and serve. During the broiling, if the breasts are quite thick, cover the broiler with a pan, and see that the fire is not too fierce. Broiled quail are considered very nourishing food for invalids.

Panned

Clean, and split the birds down the back. Dip them quickly in cold water, and sprinkle with salt, pepper and flour. The water causes the seasoning to adhere more thickly to the meat. Place the birds in a small baking-dish, with the inside of each upward; place a small piece of butter in each bird, add a cupful of water, and roast in the oven, basting every five minutes after the first fifteen. Thicken the gravy, add salt and pepper, if necessary, and pour the gravy over the birds.