Timbale de Cailles Alexandra (Quail Timbale Alexandra)

Ingredients

• Pâte à pâté
• Butter for the mould
• Bards of pork fat
• Quails
• Foie gras — one piece
• Small raw truffles
• Excellent Madeira stock — 1 1/2 decilitres
• Bay leaf

Instructions

1. Line a well-buttered timbale mould with pâte à pâté.
2. Line the inside with bards of pork fat, so that the pastry is protected by them from the liquid added later, which would soak it.
3. Put a piece of foie gras inside each quail, stiffen the quails in butter and arrange them along the walls of the timbale in superimposed rows.
4. Fill the middle entirely with small peeled raw truffles.
5. Add, for every 6 quails, 1 1/2 decilitres of excellent Madeira stock and a few fragments of bay leaf.
6. Close the timbale with a sheet of pastry and bake for one hour and a quarter in an oven of good heat.
7. Turn out as it comes from the oven and serve as it is; the pastry casing only contains the quails and their garnish and is not served.