Procure two young pheasants, pluck, draw, and truss them with their legs
turned inside, lard the best part of the breast in a square, lay some
thin slices of fat bacon at the bottom of a flat stewpan, put your
pheasants upon it breasts upwards; have ready blanched twelve fine
cabbage lettuces, take off the outside leaves and place them in the
stewpan with the pheasants, put in also two large onions with three
cloves stuck in each, and a bunch of parsley with two bayleaves, pour in
sufficient white stock to come up to the larded part of the birds, lay
eight pork sausages on the top of the lettuces, cover the whole with a
sheet of buttered paper, cover the stewpan and stew gently for an hour,
glaze and salamander the breasts of the birds, take the lettuces and
sausages carefully out and lay them on a clean cloth to extract the
grease, then lay two pieces of lettuce in the centre of your dish, just
large enough to dress the birds upon, place one upon each piece, and
with the remainder make a flat border near the edge of the dish, cut
the sausages into three pieces and dress them upon the border of
lettuce, pass the stock from the stewpan through a sieve into another
stewpan, set it to boil, skim off all the fat, add a pint and a half of
brown sauce (No. 1), reduce it to a nice demi-glace, add half a
teaspoonful of sugar, sauce over the birds and serve.
The cabbage lettuces must be rather highly seasoned when put in the pan
to stew.