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Partridges, Braised, with Mushrooms
Pick, draw, singe, and truss as for boiling, a brace of young well-kept partridges. Dredge a little flour over them, and brown them equally and lightly in hot butter. Put them side by side into a stewpan, pour to them as much rich brown gravy, seasoned with salt and cayenne, as will half cover them, and let them stew very gently until they are half done. Turn them over, put into the gravy with them two dozen small mushrooms, and simmer again until the birds are done enough. Serve them on a hot dish, with the sauce poured over them. Time, about one hour and a half. Probable cost, 5s. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A straightforward braise, but the stated time belongs to older, tougher birds. Young partridges cooked for an hour and a half will be dry whatever the sauce does for them.
- Time is the hingeA young partridge weighs about 12 oz and is done in 30 to 40 minutes of gentle simmering, turned once. The hour and a half in the original suits a mature or long-hung bird; check the thigh joint rather than the clock, and pull the birds out to rest while you reduce the sauce.
- A braceTwo birds. Despite the claim of five or six persons, a brace of partridge realistically serves two generously or three at a push, so scale up if you are feeding a table.
- "Well-kept"This means hung for several days to develop flavour, standard for game in the period. Birds from a game dealer or supermarket today are usually sold young and barely aged, which is another reason to cut the cooking time.
- Rich brown gravyA well-flavoured brown stock-based gravy rather than the pan juices of a joint, closer to a light demi-glace, though period versions were often lightly thickened with browned flour. Good reduced chicken or veal stock works; a game stock made from the backs and necks is better, and the quantity needed to half-cover two birds will depend on the pan.
- Trussing and the flourTruss with the legs drawn in against the breast so the birds sit level in the pan. The flour dredge is there to give colour and to lend the sauce a little body; brown the birds briskly in butter and do not let the flour scorch, or the gravy turns bitter.
- MushroomsTwo dozen small mushrooms is roughly 8 oz of button mushrooms. Add them for the last 15 minutes only, as directed at the halfway point in a shorter braise; longer and they collapse and grey the sauce.
- Heat level"Stew very gently" means bare trembling, around 180F in the liquid, with the lid on. A rolling simmer tightens the breast meat noticeably.
- CayenneThe seasoning is meant to be barely detectable, a warmth behind the game rather than heat. A pinch for the whole pan is enough.
- Probable cost5s is five shillings, a substantial sum in the late nineteenth century and a fair indication that this was a dish for a household with money and access to a game dealer.
Cassell's gives partridge a long run of entries; the grey partridge was among the more reliably available British game birds of the late nineteenth century, shot from the first of September and sold in braces through the autumn. Braising rather than roasting was often recommended for birds past their first youth, or for those that had hung long enough to need moist heat, with roasting favoured for the plump young ones -- though this entry calls for young birds. The pairing with mushrooms and a reduced brown sauce belongs to the Anglo-French repertoire common in Victorian cookery books, and in larger kitchens a brown gravy or stock was often kept going rather than made up for each dish. The instruction to "truss as for boiling" is a cross-reference to a technique the book assumes you already know, and it points to how these dictionaries were used, as a network of entries rather than standalone recipes.