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GAME, BLACK (a la Royale)
Pick, draw, and singe a blackcock (this must be done carefully, as the skin is easily broken). Truss it like a pheasant, lay it before a clear fire, baste it plentifully with butter, and, when sufficiently cooked, serve it on a slice of toast which, after being flavoured with lemon-juice, has been placed in the dripping-tin under the bird for some minutes. Garnish with watercress and some forcemeat balls, made of game. Good gravy should be sent to table with it. This bird should not be cooked until it gives decided indications of being ready for it. Time, about three-quarters of an hour to roast. Sufficient for two or three persons. Probable cost, 5s. the brace. Seldom offered for sale.
A plain spit-roast of blackcock, written for a household with an open fire and a game larder. Two things need translating: the heat source, and the instruction to let the bird ripen before cooking.
- "Decided indications of being ready"This is the hinge, and it means hanging. Victorian cooks hung black game in feather in a cool, airy larder until the flesh slackened and the scent turned distinctly gamey; how long was a matter of taste and weather. Modern practice is far shorter — two to four days in a refrigerator or a larder below 50F — and any bird with green discolouration, slipping feathers around the vent or a sour rather than gamey smell should be discarded.
- What a blackcock isThe male black grouse, Tetrao tetrix, roughly 2 to 2.5 lb dressed, larger and darker-fleshed than red grouse. The species has declined sharply across Britain and Europe; it is fully protected in some countries and subject to voluntary shooting moratoria in much of its remaining British range. Check what is legal where you are, and expect to source it from a game dealer rather than a shop. A brace of red grouse or a pheasant roasts on the same principles.
- Fire to ovenRoasting before a clear fire means high radiant heat on a turning bird. In an oven, use 425F for about 35 to 45 minutes for a bird of this size, basting often. The stated three-quarters of an hour is about right; the method is what changes.
- Basting is not optionalBlack game is very lean and the breast dries out before the legs are done. Bard the breast with fat bacon or a buttered paper for the first two-thirds of the roasting, remove it to brown, and baste every ten minutes. Rest the bird 10 minutes before carving; the breast is best at about 145F to 150F, still pink.
- The toastA slice of bread set in the dripping-tin beneath the bird catches the juices. Sprinkle it with lemon juice as directed and put it under for the last 15 minutes only, or it turns to grease-soaked pulp.
- Forcemeat balls of gameMade from the minced liver and any trimmings, bound with breadcrumbs, suet or butter, an egg and seasoning, rolled small and fried or baked. They can be prepared while the bird hangs and cooked alongside it.
- "Good gravy"Deglaze the roasting tin with a well-reduced game or brown stock; the book assumes a stockpot on the range. A splash of port or claret and a spoonful of redcurrant jelly are period-appropriate.
- Cost and yield5s. the brace is the price for two birds, not one. Two to three servings per bird is optimistic by modern standards — one blackcock comfortably feeds two.
Black grouse were birds of the moorland edge and birch scrub, and in Victorian Britain they were shot under a game season that opened on 20 August. Cassell's note that they are "seldom offered for sale" is worth reading alongside the Game Laws: after the Game Act 1831 game could be sold legally by licensed dealers, and many birds also came to the table from a shooting estate rather than through a poulterer. The name à la royale attaches itself loosely to a great many nineteenth-century dishes and here signals little more than plain, respectful treatment — roast, buttered, served on its own gravy-soaked toast, the toast set beneath the spit to catch what fell from the bird. The instruction to wait until the bird "gives decided indications" of readiness is the period's taste, not carelessness.