"Doug Kanter" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:
"Terje Tange" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:Can anybody please help me?
I have a swan, what shall I do to make it eatable. I have invited 10 for
dinner.
What do you suggest?
Cook it the same way you'd do with Northern pike. Izaak Walton's method:
Compleat Angler, Book 1, Chapter 8, the fourth day
... this direction how to roast him [ie. a pike] when he is caught is
choicely good, for I have tried it, and it is somewhat the better for
not being common; but with my direction you must take this caution,
that your pike must not be a small one, that is, it must be more than
half a yard, and should be bigger.
First, open your pike at the gills, and if need be, cut also a
little slit towards the belly; out of these take his guts and keep
his liver, which you are to shred very small with thyme, sweet
marjoram, and a little winter-savory; to these put some pickled
oysters, and some anchovies, two or three, both these last whole;
for the anchovies will melt, and the oysters should not: to these
you must add also a pound of sweet butter, which you are to mix with
the herbs that are shred, and let them all be well salted: if the
pike be more than a yard long, then you may put into these herbs more
than a pound, or if he be less, then less butter will suffice: these
being thus mixed with a blade or two of mace, must be put into the
pike's belly, and then his belly so sewed up as to keep all the
butter in his belly, if it be possible: if not, then as much of it
as you possibly can; but take not off the scales: then you are to
thrust the spit through his mouth out at his tail; and then take
four, five or six split sticks or very thin laths, and a convenient
quantity of tape or filleting: these laths are to be tied round
about the pike's body from his head to his tail, and the tape tied
somewhat thick to prevent his breaking or falling off from the spit:
let him be roasted very leisurely, and often basted with claret wine
and anchovies and butter mixed together, and also with what moisture
falls from him into the pan: when you have roasted him sufficiently,
you are to hold under him, when you unwind or cut the tape that ties
him, such a dish as you purpose to eat him out of; and let him fall
into it with the sauce that is roasted in his belly; and by this
means the pike will be kept unbroken and complete: then, to the
sauce which was within, and also that sauce in the pan, you are to
add a fit quantity of the best butter, and to squeeze the juice of
three or four oranges: lastly, you may either put into the pike with
the oysters two cloves of garlick, and take it whole out, when the
pike is cut off the spit; or to give the sauce a _haut-gout_ let the
dish into which you let the pike fall be rubbed with it: the using
or not using of this garlick is left to your discretion. - M.B.
This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest
men; and I trust you will prove both, and therefore I have trusted
you with this secret.
Love it, just love the language of it. Recipe sounds half decent as well.
',;~}~
Shaun aRe
