Roast Quail With Bread Sauce Recipe

Peel and slice an onion and put it over the fire in a pint of milk;

pluck and singe half a dozen quail, draw them without breaking the

intestines, cut off the heads and feet, and wipe them with a wet towel;

rub them all over with butter; season them with pepper and salt, and

roast them before a very hot fire for fifteen minutes basting them three

or four times with butter. Have some slices of toast laid under them to

catch the drippings. While the birds are roasting make a bread sauce as

follows; roll a pint bowlfull of dry bread, and sift the crumbs; use the

finest ones for the sauce, and the largest for the frying later; remove

the onion from the milk in which it has been boiling, stir into the milk

the finest portion of the crumbs, season it with a saltspoonful of white

pepper and a grate of nutmeg, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and

stir the sauce until it is smooth; then place the saucepan containing it

in a pan of boiling water to keep it hot; put two tablespoonfuls of

butter over the fire in a frying pan, and when it is smoking hot put

into it the coarse half of the crumbs, dust them with cayenne pepper,

and stir them until they are light brown; then at once put them on a hot

dish; put the bread sauce into a gravy-boat ready to send it to the

table. Arrange to have the fried breadcrumbs, sauce and quail done at

the same time; serve the birds on the toast which has been laid under

them; in serving the quail, lay each bird on a hot plate, pour over it a

large spoonful of the bread sauce and on that place a spoonful of the

fried bread crumbs.