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Game, to Devil
Some hours before the devil is wanted, the flesh should be rather deeply scored, and covered with a powder made of equal parts of salt, cayenne, and curry-powder, with the addition, if liked, of mushroom or truffle powder, butter, and mustard. Broil over a hot clear fire, until brightly browned and hot, but not burnt. Devilled game is oftener than not eaten dry, as a relish with wine. When sauce is wanted, it may be made by putting a breakfast-cupful of thick brown gravy into a saucepan, with a tea-spoonful of mixed mustard, a shallot finely minced, a spoonful of ketchup, the juice and finely-grated rind of a lemon, a tea-spoonful of salt, a quarter of a tea-spoonful of cayenne, and a tea-spoonful of bruised capers. Simmer for ten or fifteen minutes, and serve in a tureen. The devilled game will be all the better if the meat has been under-dressed. Moor game is particularly suited to this mode of cookery. Time, a few minutes to broil the bones. Probable cost, 2d., exclusive of the game. Allow one or two bones for each person.
This is a way of using up the joints and carcass of cooked game birds, not a recipe for cooking one from raw. The scoring and the long rest with the spice paste are the whole point: they are what carry the seasoning into meat that has already been roasted once.
- "Broil" means grillIn this book broiling is direct radiant heat over coals. Use a broiler element at its highest setting with the rack close, or a very hot ridged grill pan. Five to eight minutes, turned once, is usually enough to brown and heat through.
- The spice powder is stronger than it looksEqual parts salt, cayenne and curry powder makes a fierce mixture, and the recipe itself says devilled game was eaten as a relish with wine, a mouthful or two at a time. Use it sparingly, taste before committing to the full ratio, and consider cutting the cayenne.
- Rest it, do not skip it"Some hours before" is the hinge. The paste needs at least two hours, and overnight in the refrigerator is better, so the salt and spice penetrate the scored cuts rather than sitting on the surface and scorching.
- Breakfast-cupfulRoughly 8 to 10 fl oz, so a generous cup of thick brown gravy. Any well-reduced brown stock or leftover roasting gravy will do.
- Mushroom and truffle powderDried mushrooms ground in a spice mill give much the same effect; the Victorian article was generally made from common field mushrooms, though other dried mushrooms work well. Much of the truffle powder sold today owes its aroma largely to added flavouring, and adds little here.
- Moor gameRed grouse, in season in Britain from mid-August. Any dark-fleshed bird works — pheasant, partridge, wood pigeon, or duck legs. Pale chicken has too little flavour to stand up to the seasoning.
- "Under-dressed" meatThe advice is to roast the bird slightly short of done on the first day so the second cooking finishes it rather than drying it out. If you are working with fully cooked leftovers, keep the grilling brief and rely on the browning of the paste for colour.
- YieldOne or two joints per person as a savoury or relish, as the original says — this is not a main course. The single breakfast-cupful of sauce will stretch to several such portions.
Devilling — scoring cold cooked meat, plastering it with salt, cayenne and mustard, and grilling it fiercely — was a familiar feature of the English club and country-house table through the nineteenth century, and the word is usually connected with the older use of "devil" for anything fiery, though that derivation is traditional rather than firmly documented. It belonged to the margins of the meal rather than its centre: a savoury after the sweets, a late supper, or, as here, a relish eaten dry with wine. The habit fitted the economics of game, since a shooting household had cold birds to account for and the ribs, wings and drumsticks left after carving were too good to waste but too meagre to serve plainly, which is why the recipe measures its yield in "bones" and prices the whole business at twopence, exclusive of the game.