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PARTRIDGES, BROILED (another way)
Prepare the partridges as in the last recipe, sprinkle over them a little salt and cayenne, then dip them twice into clarified butter and very fine bread-crumbs, taking great care that the birds are entirely covered. Place them on a gridiron over a clear fire, and broil them gently. Send them to table on a hot dish, with brown sauce or mushroom sauce in a tureen. Time to broil the partridges, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, 3s. per brace. Sufficient for four persons.
A spatchcocked game bird, crumbed and grilled over coals. The method transfers cleanly to a modern grill or broiler, provided the crumb coating is not allowed to scorch before the meat is cooked.
- "Prepare as in the last recipe"The preceding entry is not given here, but for a bird destined for the gridiron it almost certainly means plucking, drawing and splitting the bird down the back so it lies flat. Unless the bird is flattened the thighs will struggle to cook in fifteen minutes.
- A braceTwo birds. Cassell's reckons that on four people, so half a partridge each — sensible when the bird is one course of several, thin for a modern main. Allow one bird per person and double the coating.
- Clarified butterButter with the milk solids removed, so it will not blacken over a clear fire. Melt unsalted butter gently, skim, and pour off the clear fat leaving the milky residue behind. Ghee works identically.
- Dipped twiceThe double coating is the point of this version — butter, crumbs, butter, crumbs — and it wants very fine dry crumbs, not panko. Press them on firmly and let the bird sit ten minutes before it goes near the heat so the coating sets.
- "A clear fire", broiled "gently"Clear means burnt down to steady coals with no flame, roughly medium heat. Under a modern broiler, set the rack lower than you would for a steak, around 6 inches, or the crumbs will be black at eight minutes with raw meat under them.
- A quarter of an hourReasonable for a flattened bird, turning once. Game birds are traditionally served pink at the breast; if you want a temperature, take the thickest part of the thigh to 165F, and rest five minutes.
- The birds themselvesGrey and red-legged partridge are sold by game dealers in season, usually already hung and plucked; check for shot before crumbing. Poussin, quail or small guinea fowl take the same treatment, with quail needing closer to eight minutes.
- The saucesBrown sauce of this period is broadly of the espagnole type: a browned roux with vegetables, moistened with stock. A modern reduction of game or chicken stock with a little Madeira does the same job. Mushroom sauce could be built on either a brown or a white base, with sauteed mushrooms added.
- Probable cost, 3s. per braceThree shillings for a pair of birds put this near a labourer's daily wage in the 1870s. It is a recipe for a household that bought game, not one that lived on it.
Cassell's belongs to the great age of English game cookery, when the shooting season governed what appeared on autumn menus and partridge — hung a few days, then roasted plain with bread sauce and gravy — was the standard against which other birds were judged. Broiling, with its crumb armour, offered an alternative to roasting, the coating holding in moisture that a bird has begun to lose. The technique is the same one applied to spatchcocked chicken, pigeon and devilled bones throughout the period, and the phrase "send them to table" is a reminder of the book's assumed reader, who ran a kitchen at a distance from the dining room and had staff to carry the dish and the sauce tureen.