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Grouse, Roast
Pluck the birds delicately, being careful not to tear the skin. Draw them, and wipe with a soft cloth, but do not wash them. Cut off the heads, and truss them like fowls. Put them down to a clear fire, and baste them almost unceasingly. About ten minutes before they are taken up, butter a slice of toast, half an inch thick, lay it in the pan under them, and serve the bird upon this. Send brown sauce and bread sauce to table with them, and browned bread-crumbs on a dish (see CRUMBS, FRIED BREAD). The gravy should be lightly flavoured or it will overpower that of the bird. Time, about half an hour. Probable cost, uncertain. Sufficient, a brace for four or five persons.
An open-fire roast written for a bird hung before the coals and basted constantly. The method translates to a very hot oven, and the half hour given is generous by current practice.
- The hinge: fat and heatGrouse is extremely lean and has no skin fat to protect the breast, which is why the original demands basting "almost unceasingly". In an oven, bard the breast with butter-soaked muslin or a thin sheet of fat bacon and baste every five minutes; otherwise the breast dries before the legs are done.
- Oven equivalentA "clear fire" for game means fierce radiant heat. Use 425-450F. A young red grouse of about 1 lb needs roughly 25-30 minutes; larger or older birds run to 35.
- DonenessGrouse is traditionally served pink, and the recipe's brief timing assumes it. If you want the classic result, take the breast to about 135-140F and rest 10 minutes; if you prefer poultry cooked through, expect a noticeably drier bird.
- A braceTwo birds. Cassell's yield of four or five people probably reflects a longer multi-course meal in which the grouse was one dish among several; two grouse serve two generously as a main course today.
- Trussing and not washing"Truss them like fowls" means legs drawn in and secured, wings pinned to the body so nothing scorches. The instruction not to wash the bird is sound: water dulls the flavour and does nothing for safety that the heat of roasting will not do.
- The toastThe half-inch slice under the bird is there to catch the drippings. Use good white bread, butter it, and let it sit in the roasting juices only for the last ten minutes, as the recipe directs, or it turns to paste.
- AccompanimentsBrown sauce here is a light meat gravy, not a heavy reduction; the note about overpowering the bird is the point. Bread sauce and fried breadcrumbs are the standard pair, and the crumbs are fried in butter until sandy and dry, not soft.
- SourcingRed grouse is a wild shot bird sold in season in Britain and rarely elsewhere; it is not farmed. Where it is unavailable, partridge or squab take the same treatment, with partridge nearer 20-25 minutes.
Roast grouse in a Victorian dictionary of cookery is a seasonal set piece rather than an everyday dish: the red grouse shooting season in Britain opens on 12 August, the date long known as the Glorious Twelfth, and the birds could not be bought at all for most of the year. The accompaniments here — bread sauce, fried crumbs, a light gravy and a slice of toast set under the bird — are the standard English service for roast game birds, and are generally traced to much older practice in which bread stood in for a plate and soaked up the juices. Grouse cannot be reared commercially in the way pheasant and partridge can, so the dish belonged to households with access to a moor or to a good game dealer, and its appearance in a general household dictionary says as much about the aspirations of the book's readers as about their larders.