Modern cookery for private families

Truss the wings over the backs, and roast them at a brisk fire, keeping them well and constantly basted with butter. Serve them with brown gravy, and a tureen of parsley and butter. For the second course, dish them upon young water-cresses, as directed for roast fowl _aux cressons_, page 272. About twenty minutes will roast them. 18 to 20 minutes; five minutes longer, if large; rather less, if _very_ young. BOILED PIGEONS. Truss them like boiled fowls, drop them into plenty of boiling water, throw in a little salt, and in fifteen minutes lift them out, pour parsley and butter over, and send a tureen of it to table with them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XV. =Game.= TO CHOOSE GAME. [Illustration] BUCK venison, which is in season only from June to Michaelmas, is considered finer than doe venison, which comes into the market in October, and remains in season through November and December: neither should be cooked at any other part of the year. The greater the depth of fat upon the haunch the better the quality of the meat will be, provided it be clear and white, and the lean of a dark hue. If the cleft of the hoof, which is always left on the joint, be small and smooth, the animal is young; but it is old when the marks are the reverse of these.[91] Although the haunch is the prime and favourite joint of venison, the neck and shoulder are also excellent, dressed in various ways, and make much approved pies or _pasties_ as they are usually called. If kept to the proper point, and well dressed, this is the most tender of all meat; but care is necessary to bring it into a fitting state for table without its becoming offensive. A free current of air in a larder is always a great advantage, as it assists materially in preserving the sweetness of every thing which is kept in it, while a close damp atmosphere, on the contrary, is more destructive of animal food of all kinds even than positive heat. The fumes of creosote are