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Partridges, Pie of, Hunter's
Pluck, draw, and singe three young partridges, divide them into halves, sprinkle over them a little salt, cayenne, and powdered mace, and fry them in a little hot butter until they are equally and lightly browned all over. Line the edges of a shallow pie-dish with a good crust. Lay two or three thin slices of the fillet of veal and bacon at the bottom, and sprinkle over them two table-spoonfuls of finely-minced mushrooms, a table-spoonful of chopped parsley, and a little salt and cayenne. If mushrooms cannot be had, a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup may supply their place. Pour a quarter of a pint of onion sauce over the veal, then pack the birds closely into the dish, breast uppermost, and add some more mushrooms, parsley seasoning, and onion sauce. Cover the pie with a good crust, ornament it prettily, brush it over with beaten egg, and bake in a moderate oven. Pour a quarter of a pint of melted savoury jelly into the pie before sending it to table. Time, an hour and a half to bake the pie. Probable cost, 7s. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A straightforward game pie in which the birds are browned first and finished under a lid of pastry; the only real technical demands are the two auxiliary preparations the recipe assumes you already have to hand.
- The hinge: onion sauce and jelly are separate recipesThe dish depends on a quarter-pint of onion sauce (a white sauce made with onion) poured in before baking, and a further quarter-pint of savoury jelly poured through the crust afterwards. The jelly is a well-reduced veal or game stock that sets on cooling; without it the pie is likely to eat dry. Have both made and cooled before you start assembling.
- Quarter of a pintAn imperial quarter-pint is 5 fl oz, about 150 ml — a little more than the American half-cup. The recipe calls for that amount twice.
- Moderate ovenThe book gives no temperatures; in modern terms roughly 350F / 175C. An hour and a half at that heat suits a covered pie of this depth, but tent the pastry with foil if it colours before the last half-hour.
- The birdsGrey or French partridge sold oven-ready needs no plucking or singeing. Three birds halved gives six pieces; young birds weigh 10-12 oz each. Fry only to colour — three or four minutes a side — since the long bake does the cooking.
- Fillet of veal and baconThin slices of veal escalope beaten out, or a thin pork cutlet, line the base and keep the birds off the hot dish. Streaky bacon or unsmoked pancetta answers for the bacon; the point is fat, not smoke flavour.
- Mushroom ketchupThe Victorian bottled kind was a thin, salty, near-black mushroom extract, not a thick sauce. Anchovy-free mushroom ketchup is still sold; a tablespoon of dark soy plus a little reduced dried-mushroom liquor gives a comparable savoury depth if you cannot find it.
- Lining only the edgesThe pastry goes round the rim of the dish and over the top, not underneath. Wet the rim, press a strip of trimmings onto it, then seal the lid to that strip so it does not shrink away in the oven.
- Adding the jellyCut a small vent in the lid before baking, and pour the warmed jelly in through it once the pie is out of the oven and beginning to settle. Pouring it into a fully cold pie leaves it sitting on top of the meat.
- Yield and costFive or six servings, as stated. The 7s. is Victorian money and means nothing now beyond signalling that this was a substantial dish for a household with game coming in.
Cassell's groups this with other game pies, and the "hunter's" label appears to mark it as a shooting-season dish rather than a specific regional recipe: partridge is a bird that arrives in the kitchen in quantity for a few autumn weeks and has to be used. The construction — browned joints packed on a bed of veal and bacon, moistened with sauce, sealed under pastry and topped up with jelly after baking — follows a familiar English game-pie pattern of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the jelly is what allows such a pie to be eaten cold the next day without going dry. The alternative of mushroom ketchup for fresh mushrooms is characteristic of the period: fresh mushrooms were seasonal and costly, while bottled mushroom ketchup was a common store-cupboard item, and cookery writers of the period often offered it as a substitute.