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Pheasant, Braised, and Rump Steak
Pick, draw, and singe a pheasant, and truss it as for boiling. Put into it a little forcemeat made with three ounces of finely-grated bread-crumbs, two ounces of fresh butter, the eighth part of a nutmeg, grated, and a little salt, pepper, and cayenne. Cover the breast with slices of fat bacon, and fasten them on securely with twine. Though this bacon is not served with the pheasant, it will be found excellent for breakfast if it is boiled two or three minutes before being used. Take two pounds of good rump-steak, three-quarters of an inch thick. Lay two or three slices of fat bacon on this. Rub the inside of a good-sized saucepan with a clove of garlic. Dissolve two ounces of fresh butter in it, put in the beef, and round it a dozen chestnuts which have been skinned and scalded. Lay the pheasant upon it, breast uppermost, add a scraped carrot, three or four of the outer sticks of a head of celery cut into small pieces, four shallots, a good-sized lump of sugar, a small tea-spoonful of pepper, half a tea-spoonful of mustard, a tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce, a tea-spoonful of soy, and a dessert-spoonful of mushroom ketchup. Pour over these rather less than a pint of boiling stock or water, cover the saucepan closely, bring the contents to a boil, then draw the pan to the side, and let them simmer as gently as possible for quite three hours. Serve the beef and the pheasant on separate dishes, and as hot as possible, with a little of the gravy strained over the pheasant, and the rest in a tureen. The nuts should be used to garnish the beef. If an acid flavour is liked, the juice of half a lemon may be added to the gravy, and a little salt put in if necessary, but this will depend upon the quality of the bacon. Probable cost, about 8s., with the pheasant at 3s., and the rump-steak at 1s. 4d. per pound. Sufficient for seven or eight persons.
A Victorian pot-roast of two meats in one pan: the steak sits underneath as a bed and a flavour base, the bird steams above it. Both come out very well done by modern standards, which is the point rather than a fault.
- The hinge: keep it barely tremblingThree hours at a hard boil will turn a pheasant to shreds. Draw the pan to the side of the heat, as the recipe directs, keep the lid on, and aim for occasional bubbles only.
- Imperial measuresAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so "rather less than a pint" is roughly 2 to 2 1/4 US cups. A dessert-spoonful is 2 teaspoons. A "good-sized lump of sugar" means a cube of loaf sugar, about a rounded teaspoon.
- Soy and mushroom ketchupThe "soy" of this period is a thick, dark, rather sweet bottled sauce, closer to a dark Chinese soy than to Japanese shoyu. Mushroom ketchup is still sold in Britain; a thinned mushroom-and-anchovy paste or a spoonful of Worcestershire sauce covers the same salty-savoury ground.
- Anchovy sauceNot anchovy paste from a tube but the pourable bottled sauce. Half a teaspoon of paste slackened with a little water is the practical equivalent.
- The forcemeatThree ounces of crumbs to two ounces of butter with no egg gives a loose, buttery stuffing that is meant to melt into the bird rather than slice. Do not pack it tight, or the breast will cook unevenly.
- Farmed versus wild birdsA supermarket pheasant is leaner and blander than a hung wild bird and needs the bacon barding at least as much. If the bird was shot, feel the breast and thighs for lead pellets before stuffing.
- The steakTwo pounds of rump three-quarters of an inch thick, braised whole for three hours, is being treated as pot roast, not steak. Slice it across the grain to serve; the chestnuts go round it as garnish.
- Chestnuts"Skinned and scalded" means peeled of both shell and inner skin. Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts work, but add them for the last hour only or they will disintegrate.
- Yield and the costingSeven or eight portions, as stated. The 8s. total and 1s. 4d. a pound for rump are later nineteenth-century prices and are useful only as a reminder that a pheasant then cost roughly twice a pound of good steak.
Cassell's belongs to an era in which a game bird was sometimes cooked on top of a piece of beef, on the understanding that lean, close-grained wild meat needed the fat and moisture of butcher's meat to stay edible through a long, slow braise. The bacon over the breast does the same job from above, and the note that it should be boiled briefly and eaten at breakfast is thoroughly of its period. The seasoning list is a portrait of the late-Victorian store cupboard, in which bottled soy, mushroom ketchup and anchovy sauce supplied savoury depth alongside the stock or water called for here. Pheasant at 3s. against rump steak at 1s. 4d. a pound places the dish in a comfortable household with access to game, whether bought or sent down from a shooting party, and the instruction to serve the two meats on separate dishes suggests a table where both would appear at once.