Cover the breasts with very thin slices of bacon, or rub them well with
butter; roast them before a good fire, basting them often with butter.
Fifteen minutes will cook them sufficiently, if they are served very
hot, although twenty minutes would be my rule, not being an epicure.
Salt and pepper them. Serve on a hot dish the moment they are cooked.
They are very good with a bread-sauce made as follows:
BREAD-SAUCE, FOR GAME (_Mrs. Crane_).
First roll a pint of dry bread-crumbs, and pass half of them through a
sieve. Put a small onion into a pint of milk, and when it boils remove
the onion, and thicken the milk with the half-pint of sifted crumbs;
take it from the fire, and stir in a heaping tea-spoonful of butter, a
grating of nutmeg, pepper and salt. Put a little butter into a _sauté_
pan, and when hot throw in the half-pint of coarser crumbs which
remained in the sieve; stir them over the fire until they assume a
light-brown color, taking care that they do not burn, and stir into them
a small pinch of Cayenne pepper. They should be rather dry. For serving,
put a plump roast quail on a plate, pour over a table-spoonful of the
white sauce, and on this place a table-spoonful of the crumbs. The
sauce-boat and plate of crumbs may be passed separately, or the host may
arrange them at table before the birds are passed. This makes a dish
often seen in England.