Roasted Quail

Ingredients

• 6 whole quail
• butter
• salt
• pepper
• 6 slices fat bacon
• 6 slices buttered toast
• 0.5 spoonful butter
• boiling water
• 1 whole lemon
• watercress
• green grape jelly

Instructions

1. Pick, draw, singe, and wipe the quail inside and out with a damp cloth. Butter the inside of each bird and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Butter all over the outside, truss, and bind around each with a thin slice of fat bacon (or wrap in grape leaves if available, after the above preparation).
2. Put a tablespoonful of butter in the roasting pan and fit in the quail. Roast in a hot oven for twenty to thirty minutes, according to size.
3. Place six slices of hot buttered toast in a hot serving dish and lay a quail on each slice.
4. Add half a spoonful of butter, a little boiling water, and the juice of a lemon to the gravy left in the pan. Cook for three to four minutes, stirring well. Strain the gravy, set back on the stove, and cook two minutes longer. Pour evenly upon the breasts of the birds so it will soak into the toast.
5. Garnish with sliced lemon and watercress, and serve with green grape jelly (or with spiced grapes if the birds were wrapped in grape leaves). Serve the fresh young grape leaves as garnish if they were used instead of bacon.