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PHEASANT (a la Bonne Femme)
Pick, draw, and singe a well-hung pheasant, and put it into a buttered stewpan with three ounces of good beef dripping, and six ounces of ham, fat and lean together, cut into inch squares. Fry over a gentle fire until the pheasant is equally and lightly browned all over, then add a table-spoonful of chutney, and three or four large Spanish onions cut into thin slices. Cover the saucepan closely, and simmer gently until the pheasant is done enough, and the onions are quite soft. Put the bird on a hot dish. Beat the onions over the fire for eight or ten minutes, season with pepper and salt, and put them round the bird. Serve immediately. Time, about an hour to stew the pheasant. Probable cost of pheasants, 3s. when in full season. PHEASANT (a la Sainte Alliance), an Epicure's dish.
Take a well-hung cock pheasant, draw it, and truss it for roasting. Stuff it with a forcemeat made as follows. Mince finely the flesh and intestines of two woodcocks or snipes, add to them two ounces of fresh butter, a tea-spoonful of salt, a tea-spoonful of pepper, a good pinch of cayenne, a small bunch of savoury herbs finely powdered, and as many chopped truffles as will be required to fill the pheasant. Truss the bird firmly, and roast it before a clear fire, basting liberally with fresh butter. Lay under it, in the pan, a round of toasted bread, upon which a little of the stuffing has been spread, and serve the bird on the toast. Brillat Savarin, with whom this recipe originated, says that a pheasant prepared thus is fit for beings better than men. Send brown gravy and bread sauce to table separately. Time to roast, from three-quarters of an hour to one hour and a quarter, according to the size. Probable cost of pheasants, 3s. when in full season. Sufficient for three or four persons.
Two Victorian pheasant recipes: a braise with onions and ham, and Brillat-Savarin's stuffed roast. Both assume a hung, undrawn bird bought whole and feathered, which changes most of the practical detail.
- "Well-hung" todayVictorian kitchens hung game in a cool larder for a week or more to tenderise it and develop flavour. A supermarket or butcher's pheasant has usually been hung only a few days under refrigeration; if you hang your own, do it at 2-7C and no longer than about a week, and discard any bird that smells sour rather than gamey.
- Bird size and yieldA dressed pheasant runs 2-2.5 lb and feeds two generously or three at a stretch, despite the book's "three or four persons" for the roast. A hen bird is smaller and more tender; a cock is bigger and better suited to the braise.
- Beef dripping and the stewpanThree ounces of dripping is about 6 tablespoons; butter or a neutral oil works, though dripping browns beautifully. The "stewpan" is a heavy lidded pan or Dutch oven just large enough to hold the bird — too wide and the onions scorch before they collapse.
- The onions are the dishThree or four large Spanish onions is well over 2 lb, sliced thin. They release enough liquid to steam the bird, so no stock is added; keep the lid tight and the heat very low. The final "beat the onions over the fire for eight or ten minutes" means driving off the water until they are a thick, jammy purée.
- Chutney in 1890Chutney — A tablespoon of chutney here probably means a sweet, sharp mango-type Indian chutney rather than a chunky fruit relish. It is there for acid and sugar against the fat ham and dripping.
- Don't overcook the breastAn hour of stewing dries pheasant breast badly. Take the bird out when the thigh reaches 74C/165F — perhaps 40-50 minutes — rest it, and let the onions finish alone. The book roasts before an open fire and gives no oven setting; if adapting to an oven, around 200C/400F for 40-50 minutes with frequent basting may suit a small bird better than the upper end of the book's hour and a quarter.
- Woodcock and snipeBoth are wild-shot and hard to buy in many places; check local season and licensing before sourcing them. The recipe's "intestines" is the woodcock trail — the bird is traditionally cooked ungutted, and the trail minus the gizzard is mashed into the stuffing. Chicken livers give a workable, if tamer, substitute.
- Truffles"As many chopped truffles as will be required to fill the pheasant" is a Victorian luxury measure and would be extremely expensive today. A tablespoon of chopped preserved truffle, or truffle paste stirred into the butter, gives the intended perfume.
- The toast underneathThe round of bread sits in the dripping pan catching the fat and juices, spread with a little of the forcemeat. This is the point of the dish as much as the bird; use a sturdy, close-crumbed loaf that will not collapse.
The second recipe is credited correctly: faisan à la Sainte-Alliance appears in Brillat-Savarin's Physiologie du Goût (1825), where he presents it as the summit of gastronomic reasoning — the bird hung to the exact point of ripeness, stuffed with the smaller birds and truffles, and served on the toast that has caught everything that fell. The name is usually taken as a nod to the Holy Alliance of 1815, the diner's own alliance of pheasant, woodcock and truffle standing in for the alliance of powers, though the text does not explain it. It is reprinted here alongside a much plainer English braise; the pairing shows how a single game bird served two quite different tables. The price note — three shillings for a bird in full season — places pheasant as a luxury rather than a cheap everyday meat.