CHAP. x.J MODES OF COOKING. 389 



but, owing to their enormous price in England, they are 

 very seldom, if ever, to be procured at the poulterer's. 

 A dish of fillets of young Quails is never attempted ; 

 the expense would be extravagant, without any other 

 merit. Quails in my opinion have no flavour, and from 

 the circumstance of confinement and bad feeding are 

 never very fat ; it is only their rarity that makes them 

 fashionable." Nevertheless, he gives half a dozen re- 

 ceipts for cooking them, a request to have any one of 

 which executed would thunderstrike an old-fashioned 

 English cook, and make her give warning the moment 

 she had recovered from her amazement. We may 

 guess how she would look on being summoned into the 

 breakfast-room, and requested to listen attentively while 

 her mistress ordered a dish of Quails au Gratin, and 

 read to her the following easily understood directions 

 for preparing it : " Bone six quails, pick them nicely ; 

 take a little farce fine or quenelle, made in preference 

 with the flesh of young rabbits ; fill the bodies of the 

 quails with the farce : then raise a kind of dome on a 

 dish, and with a spoon make room for the birds : next 

 make an opening in the middle ; let it be either round or 

 square, according to the shape of the dish. Put a 

 sweet-meat pot within the opening; cover the birds 

 with layers of bacon, and put the dish into the oven for 

 about a quarter of an hour, or twenty minutes at most, 

 till the birds are done. Drain the fat carefully, take 

 out the pot ; then take six slices of bread cut in the 

 shape of cock's combs, which fry in the butter till they 

 are of a light brown, and put them one by one between 

 the birds. Serve a ragout a la financiere in the mid- 

 dle, and cover the birds and the gratin over with a good 

 Espagnole, well reduced." 



