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Partridge Salad
Roast partridges, and let them get cold; or cut and trim the remains of cold partridges into convenient-sized pieces. Put these into a dish or bowl, then sprinkle over them a little salt and cayenne, with a table-spoonful of minced parsley and a table-spoonful of mixed herbs, composed of equal portions of tarragon, chervil, and chives. Add a table-spoonful of good veal stock, three dessert-spoonfuls of tarragon vinegar, and a quarter of a pint of salad-oil. Let the partridges lie in this marinade for two hours. Wash and dry thoroughly three fresh lettuces, shred them finely, and lay them on a dish. Drain the pieces of partridge, and put them on the lettuce, ornament the dish with dried capers, parsley, gherkins, hard-boiled eggs, anchovies, aspic jelly, or anything else that is preferred, and just before the salad is sent to table pour the seasoned mixture, in which the pieces were soaked, over it. Time to roast the partridges, about half an hour. Probable cost of partridges, 3s. per brace.
A cold game salad built around leftover roast partridge, dressed with a fines-herbes marinade that doubles as the dressing. Nothing here is difficult; the measurements and the roasting time are what need translating.
- The hinge: drain, then dress at the tableThe marinade does two jobs — it seasons the cold meat, then becomes the dressing. Drain the birds before they go on the lettuce and hold the liquid back until the moment of serving, or the shredded leaves collapse into oil-soaked ribbons.
- Spoon and pint measuresA dessert-spoonful is 2 teaspoons, so three is 2 tablespoons of tarragon vinegar. A quarter of an Imperial pint of oil is 5 fl oz, a scant 2/3 cup — roughly one part vinegar to five parts oil, milder than a modern vinaigrette.
- Roasting the partridges"About half an hour" is the book's own timing; no oven temperature is given. Modern practice is nearer 20-25 minutes at 425F for a whole grey partridge, resting until the breast juices run faintly pink; overcooked partridge is dry and stringy, and it will not improve in the marinade.
- Veal stockA tablespoon of gelatinous brown veal stock adds body the oil cannot. Any good reduced brown stock, or a spoonful of jellied roasting juices from the birds themselves, does the same thing.
- The mixed herbsTarragon, chervil and chives in equal parts is the classic fines herbes trio minus the parsley, which is measured separately here. Chervil is the hard one to buy; if it is unavailable, lean on the tarragon rather than substituting dried herbs, which go dusty in a cold dressing.
- Three lettucesLettuces of the period were generally smaller than modern supermarket heads, so three heads is probably in the region of what one large romaine and a butterhead give today. Shred finely, as directed, and dry the leaves properly or the dressing will slide off.
- Aspic jelly and the garnishesChopped aspic was a common Victorian decoration and is optional here; capers, gherkins, anchovy fillets and quartered hard-boiled eggs carry the dish perfectly well on their own. "Dried capers" probably means capers drained of their brine and patted dry.
- YieldA brace of partridges, or the remains of two roast birds, serves four as a light main course or six as a first course.
Partridge was a familiar game bird of the British table, which is why a price — three shillings the brace — can be quoted and a cook assumed to have cold remains to deal with. Recipes of this sort belong to the long Victorian tradition of the "salad" as a composed, garnished dish rather than a bowl of leaves: the meat is marinated, the leaves are a bed, and the decoration of capers, gherkins, eggs and chopped aspic is part of the point. The tarragon-chervil-chives seasoning is borrowed straight from French practice, where fines herbes was the standard aromatic mixture for delicate meats, and tarragon vinegar was a stock item in any well-run late-Victorian larder. The shooting season, which in Britain opened for partridge on the first of September, meant such recipes were essentially autumn and winter cooking.