Camp cookery (Intermediate-Advanced level)

In camp life, small and large birds should be roasted, broiled, or stewed.

Pick all the feathers off, cut a slit in them, and draw them. Either wash or wipe carefully. If for roasting, tie the legs down, and place in the pan. Sprinkle with flour, cover the bottom of the pan with water, and roast, if ducks, thirty minutes, grouse and partridges the same. Small birds, about half as long. The oven must be very hot.

Birds Roasted in their Feathers

Open the bird in the usual manner, and draw it; then cover with wet clay, and bury in hot coals. In forty minutes, draw from the coals, and peel off the clay, when feathers and skin will come also. A gentleman assures me that they are perfectly delicious cooked in this manner.

Broiled Birds

Clean, and split down the back. Wipe dry, and broil over a clear fire, if small, ten minutes, but, if large, fifteen. Season with salt, pepper, and butter, and serve on toast.

Stewed Partridges or Pigeons

Place two partridges in a small kettle, and dredge with salt, pepper, flour, half teaspoonful of mace, half of cloves, and cover with cold water. Cover tight, and simmer two hours. Thicken with three spoonfuls of flour, and stir in two spoonfuls of catsup; simmer one hour longer, and serve. Grouse and pigeons are stewed in the same manner.

Brown Fricassee of Chicken

Cut two chickens or old fowl into handsome pieces, and parboil them in just water enough to cover them; when they are tender, take them up, and drain them dry. Cut a pound of salt pork into slices, and fry them brown; take up the pork, dredge the chicken with salt, pepper, and flour, and fry a dark brown in the pork fat. When the chicken is all fried, stir into the remaining pork fat half a cup of dry flour; stir this until a dark brown, then pour on it one quart of the liquor in which the chicken was boiled. (This liquor must be boiling.) Season with pepper and salt to taste. Lay the chicken in this gravy, and simmer twenty minutes. Garnish the dish with boiled rice.

White Fricassee of Chicken

Boil the chicken until tender, and then cut it into small pieces. With the water in which it was boiled make gravy, allowing half a cup of flour and two spoonful of butter to every quart of water. Season with pepper and salt; turn in the chicken, and let it boil five minutes, and serve. Garnish the dish with boiled rice.

Chicken Curry

Make the same as white fricassee, with the addition of one teaspoonful of Indian curry to one pint of gravy, if it is liked strong, if not, half a teaspoonful. Dissolve the curry in a little water, and stir in. Garnish the dish with rice. Veal and mutton can be curried in the same manner.

Chicken Salad

Boil tender four good-sized chickens; when cold, cut off the white meat, and chop rather coarse. Cut off the white part of the celery, and chop in the same manner. To two quarts and a pint of the chicken, allow one quart and a pint of the celery and a spoonful of salt. Mix well together, and then stir in part of the dressing. Shape the salad in a flat dish, and pour over the remainder of the dressing. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs, beets, and the tops of the celery.

Sauce for Birds

Put one tablespoonful of butter into a pan; and, when it gets hot, add one tablespoonful of flour; stir until brown, then add one cup of boiling water, and salt and pepper to taste.

Broiled Chicken

Split down the back, wash, and wipe dry, and broil over clear coals twenty-five minutes. Season with pepper, salt, and butter.

Key words:

Find definitions for the words below:

1.     Garnish

2.     Simmer

3.     Dredge

4.     Grouse

5.     Mace

6.     Pan

7.     Broil

8.     Stir

9.     Mutton

10.                        Sprinkle