Pigeons, Monarch Style—Smothered

Choose six good squabs; draw, singe, and clean them well; dip the breasts into boiling water to harden the skin and facilitate the larding process, then lard them with small lardons of fat pork (No. 4, Fig. 54), and braise them in a mirepoix stock (No. 419); glaze and let them get a fine color; when done, drain and dress. Garnish around with stuffed olives, truffles, mushrooms, quenelles, cocks'-combs, and kidneys, or the combs may be imitated by pieces of veal palate removed with a cutter into comb-shapes. Cover with a veloute sauce (No. 415) reduced with mushroom essence (No. 398), and thickened with raw egg-yolks and fresh butter, sending some of the sauce to the table separately. Surround these garnishings with trussed crawfish, and between these lay slices of foies-gras an inch and a quarter in diameter by three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness, breaded a la Villeroi and fried.