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PARTRIDGES, SALMI OF (a la Chasseur)
Take cold roast partridge--if underdone so much the better--cut it into neat joints; remove the skin, fat, and sinew, and lay the pieces in a saucepan with four table-spoonfuls of salad-oil, six table-spoonfuls of claret, the grated rind and strained juice of a large fresh lemon, and a little salt, pepper, and cayenne. Simmer gently for a few minutes until the salmi is hot throughout, then serve it immediately. Garnish with fried sippets. Probable cost, 2s. 6d. Sufficient for two persons.
A reheated-game dish that lives or dies by the temperature of the pan: the point is to warm cooked partridge through in a sharp oil-and-wine liquor, not to cook it again.
- The hinge: no boilingKeep the liquid at a bare tremble and pull the pan off as soon as the joints are hot in the centre, three to four minutes. Once the wine boils the lean breast meat tightens and the sauce splits into oil and liquid.
- Salad-oilIn Victorian usage this usually means olive oil, though other bland oils were also sold under the name. Four tablespoons is a lot of oil for the quantity of meat; it is meant to emulsify loosely with the claret and lemon into a dressing-like sauce.
- ClaretAny dry red Bordeaux or similar unoaked red. Six tablespoons is about 90 ml.
- Lemon rindGrate only the yellow zest, avoiding the bitter white pith. The recipe adds rind and juice to the pan with the oil and claret from the start.
- SippetsSmall triangles or fingers of bread fried in butter or oil until crisp, arranged round the edge of the dish. Make them while the salmi warms so they stay dry.
- Underdone is deliberateThe preference for underdone roast partridge suits a dish that only warms the meat through, so gentle reheating will not dry it as it would well-done birds. If your leftover birds are well done, warm them for even less time and spoon the sauce over.
- Sourcing the birdsWild partridge is seasonal and sold by game dealers; the recipe gives only the yield, sufficient for two persons, not the number of birds. Roast poussin or the legs and breast of a small guinea fowl behave similarly, though with less flavour to carry the lemon.
- Probable cost2s. 6d. is half a Victorian crown, a price quoted for the cook keeping household accounts rather than any guide to today's cost.
Salmi (also salmis) is a French kitchen term for a dish of game, usually already roasted, finished in a sharp sauce — often traced to salmigondis, the same root that gives English "salmagundi", a word for a hodgepodge. In the grand tradition a salmi was an elaborate affair: the carcass pounded and simmered to make a rich brown sauce for the carved joints. Cassell's version is the domestic shortcut, and the tag à la chasseur — hunter's style — signals the rougher, quicker treatment, oil and wine and lemon instead of a strained espagnole. Its presence in a Victorian dictionary of cookery reflects the expectation that a book of this kind would tell the cook what to do with roast game left over from the day before.