Grouse or Prairie Hens a la Tzarina—Breasts

Remove the breasts from six fresh grouse or prairie hens, suppress the minion fillets and pare the larger ones prettily the same as chicken fillets, taking off all the skin; beat down to flatten and season with salt, lay them in a sautoir with cold clarified butter and cover with a buttered paper. With the minion fillets, and the breast parings, prepare game cream forcemeat (No. 75), have it nice and smooth and keep it cold. Butter a plain border mold (Fig. 139), decorate the sides with fanciful bits of truffle and lay it aside on ice. Prepare a garnishing composed only of fine and very white cocks-combs, not having them too much cooked and place them in a bain-marie. With the carcasses of the breasts without the legs prepare a good fumet, and strain it. Put on to reduce a few gills of good bechamel (No. 409) with a small bunch of green fennel, mushroom peelings and a spoonful of prepared red pepper (No. 168) and incorporate the fumet slowly into this; when this sauce becomes rich, but not too thick, strain and keep it in a bain-marie stirring it up occasionally. Fill the decorated mold with the cream forcemeat pressing it in carefully, cover it over with a buttered paper and poach it for fifteen to twenty minutes in a bain-marie. At the last moment poach the fillets over a brisk fire, turning them around and keeping them rare; two minutes will suffice for their cooking drain them off at once to pare and pour into this same sautoir one gill and a half of good game stock (No. 195), reduce the liquid to half with the butter and incorporate this slowly into the sauce. On the rounded end of each of the fillets lay an oval piece of cooked truffle covered with a thin layer of raw forcemeat to help fasten it on. Unmold the border on a dish, fill the interior with the well-drained combs and dress the fillets in a circle on the border. Cover them as well as the combs with a part of the sauce and serve the rest apart.