Beware of cooks who assure you that they know how to roast quail until
you have seen their skill put to the test. It is a failing common to
too many cooks to over-roast these dainty little birds. Fourteen to
sixteen minutes in a hot oven is quite long enough to cook them to the
point favored by epicurean palates. They should be served on bread
sliced and fried, and with them, if desired, a very little of the
clear sauce above recommended for partridges.
Any of the pieces left from these birds roasted may be daintily served
with a mayonnaise dressing, and you may be willing to assert that the
last state of that bird was better than the first.
Velvet Soup.
Sherry, Amontillado.
Baked halibut with Parmesan cheese.
Roasted duck with olives.
Burgundy, Romanee.
Cauliflower with bread crumbs.
Lettuce and cucumber salad.
Macaroon charlotte.
Toasted crackers.
Cream cheese. Coffee.
It was with the intention of preparing a dinner according to the above
menu that I went about my duties "all on a market day," for it seemed
to me upon looking it over to be a dainty repast for four people, and
one wherein neither parsimony nor extravagance held the trick hand.
And a safe middle course in one's daily regimen tends quite as much to
health and prosperity in individual and nation as does the same policy
in seemingly weightier matters.