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Partridges, Stewed
Truss a brace of partridges as if for boiling, put them into a stewpan, cover with boiling stock or water, and put with them two onions, two carrots, a bunch of sweet herbs, half a blade of mace, and a little salt and cayenne. Simmer gently until they are tender, then take out a pint of the liquid in which they have been stewed, and make with it some celery, onion, or Soubise sauce. Serve the birds as hot as possible, with the puree poured over them. Time, about thirty minutes to stew the partridges. Probable cost, 4s. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A plain poached game bird finished with a sauce made from its own cooking liquor. The whole dish stands or falls on not overcooking the birds, which have almost no fat to protect them.
- A brace is twoTwo partridges, traditionally sold as a pair. The grey (English) partridge is the smaller bird, the red-legged a little larger; either suits the method.
- Thirty minutes is for young birdsAn early-season bird is tender at 25-30 minutes at a bare simmer. Anything older, or frozen and of unknown age, wants 45 minutes to an hour, and the liquid must never boil or the breast turns to string.
- Trussed as for boilingLegs pushed in tight against the body and tied, wings folded back, so the bird holds its shape in the pot and cooks evenly. A couple of turns of kitchen string does it.
- Half a blade of maceMace is the lacy covering of the nutmeg seed. Half a blade is roughly an eighth of a teaspoon of ground mace, though the whole blade infuses more cleanly and can be fished out.
- Soubise sauceAn onion puree: onions sweated in butter without colour, then either sieved with a little rice cooked in them or bound with bechamel. Here the pint of strained cooking liquor replaces some or all of the milk, so let it reduce and taste for salt before thickening.
- A pint of liquidAn imperial pint, 20 fl oz, or about 2.5 US cups. Strain it and let it settle so you can skim before it goes into the sauce.
- Cost and yieldFour shillings is the book's own price for the brace. Two partridges realistically serve two generously or four as part of a larger meal; five or six portions assumes a Victorian table where this was one dish among several.
- ServingGame goes cold on the plate faster than almost anything. Warm the dish and the sauce, and carry the birds straight from the pot.
Cassell's belongs to the era when partridge was ordinary rather than luxurious: the grey partridge was abundant on English farmland, the shooting season opened on 1 September, and a brace was a common gift between households. Stewing rather than roasting was the sensible treatment for birds late in the season or of uncertain age, when roasting would only dry them out. The Soubise finish is a French borrowing that had been thoroughly naturalised in English cookery by this date; the name is generally traced to the eighteenth-century Princes de Soubise, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented, and by the time of this book it simply meant onion puree to any professional cook. The dish shows the standard Victorian economy of the stewpan, where the poaching liquor is never discarded but becomes the body of the sauce that returns to the plate.