A Christmas Choice Of Fair And Fancy Game

Otto, Count Abensperg-Traun, a passionate falconer and president of the Austrian Falconers' Association, is one of his country's leading sportsmen. The game dish he most likes to see served at his table is Stuffed Boar's Head. His recipe for cooking it:

"The meat of the boar's head is separated from the bones and skin. About 1 pound of veal is added, and the meat is well ground. One-half pound of butter and 3 whole eggs are stirred well together. The ground meat is mixed with the butter and eggs and 4 ounces of bacon, cut to small squares. Salt and meat spices are added to taste. The whole is mixed well, then the boar's head is filled with the mixture, closed with a pork sward (bacon rind) and sewn together. The boar's head is put into a napkin and cooked for 3 hours in a soup of water, salt, roots and 3 to 4 spoonsful of vinegar. When nearly cool, it is covered with a chaud-froid sauce and served with Cumberland sauce [see below].

"Chaud-froid sauce: about a half pint of bouillon, 3 to 4 bouillon cubes and 3 spoonsful of dissolved aspic powder are mixed well and poured over the boar's head just before it cools off completely.

"Cumberland sauce: a half pound of currant jelly, the juice of 1 orange, the juice of 1 lemon, the grated rind of half an orange and 1 tablespoon of mustard are mixed well to sauce consistency."

KING FEISAL'S ROAST PARTRIDGE

Iraq's 20-year-old king tries to get away hunting for about one week in every month. His favorite game food is the Iraqi partridge, a fairly chunky bird with a fair amount of eating on it, smooth white meat, not particularly gamy. His recipe, particularly adaptable for use in the field, is:

"Clean and pluck the bird. Split it lengthwise down the breast, clear through to the body cavity. Then spread it out, breaking the backbone in the process. Flavor with salt, pepper and a little onion juice.

"Now for the cooking. We roast our partridge in very special circumstances, in a tennoor, which is a native Iraqi mud oven. A tennoor is about 5 feet tall and a couple of feet in diameter, made of plastered mud several inches thick with a draught hole at the bottom and a hole at the top. First you build a very hot wood fire in your tennoor and then you let it die down until there are only embers; it is important that there should be no remaining flame. Then you place your bird between two grills, like an old-fashioned toaster, or on a spit. You fix it inside the tennoor, a few inches above the bed of coals. Make sure that the bird does not touch the coals and that there is no flame. Then you plug the tennoor's upper and lower orifices with wooden planks, chinking the cracks with wet mud. Leave it 10 minutes and take it out and eat it. It's almost as if it were cooked in a pressure cooker."

BARON de ROTHSCHILD'S HARE A LA ROYALE

One of France's leading sportsmen, Baron James de Rothschild has been for over 30 years the maitre d'�quipage of the important hunting society Par Vaux et For�ts. Though he hunts stag mostly, the Baron prefers to eat hare, and this is his recommended recipe: