Take eight snipe for a moderately sized pie; cut them into neat pieces. Make a forcemeat of ham, chicken, tongue, seasoned with a little sweet herbs, pepper, salt, cayenne, some breadcrumbs, and mushrooms chopped fine. Mix all together with the yolks of a couple of eggs, then place in the pie-dish a layer of snipe, then forcemeat, then snipe again, and then forcemeat, till the dish is full. Pour in some good gravy, and put it in the oven to bake. When it is done, raise the paste cover and pour in some more gravy. This pie may be eaten hot or cold.
Parboil the birds in broth and Chablis, seasoned with pepper, salt, a grated onion, and a grate of nutmeg. Make a forcemeat of finely scraped beef, say one pound, also four ounces of fat pork. Pound and mix well together with a little butter and the crumb of a roll soaked in broth, season with grated onion, pepper, mushrooms and gherkins chopped fine, and add a little broth. Line a dish with this forcemeat, put in the snipe, and bake it for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. Serve with a sauce made of half a pint of good stock, a gill of Chablis, a little water, and a piece of butter rolled in flour, and stirred till smooth; when it begins to boil slice in pickled gherkins.
Cut four snipes in two lengthwise, remove the gizzards, put the trails aside, and season the birds with salt and cayenne. Fry the birds in butter for ten minutes and then stand them to drain in the cool till wanted. Make a forcemeat of four ounces of calf's liver, four ditto fat bacon cut small, melt the latter over a quick fire, and then add the liver and season the mixture with pepper, salt, and herbs. When these are cooked, let them get cold, and then pound them in the mortar with the trails of the birds. Now pass all through a sieve. Line a buttered pie-mould with raised crust paste, and put in a layer of the forcemeat at the bottom of the mould, leaving it hollow in the centre. Put half the pieces of snipe in a circle upon the forcemeat, and place a little ball of forcemeat upon them, put in the rest of the birds and put a layer of forcemeat over all. Fill the hollow in the centre with bread which has been covered with fat bacon, put the pastry cover on, and bake. When done, take off the cover, remove bread and fill its place with scallopped truffles. Pour good brown sauce over all, pile truffles on the top, and serve. This can also be made in a china raised pie-case.