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Pheasant, Salmi Of
Roast a well-hung pheasant until it is a little more than half-done, then take it from the fire, and when it is almost cold, cut it into neat joints, and carefully remove the skin and fat. Put the meat aside until wanted, and place the bones and trimmings in a saucepan with an ounce of fresh butter, a sprig of thyme, and a bay-leaf, and stir these ingredients over a slow fire until they are lightly browned; then pour over them half a pint of good brown sauce, and a glassful of sherry. Let them simmer gently for a quarter of an hour; strain the gravy, skim it carefully, add a pinch of cayenne, and the juice of half a lemon, and put it back into the saucepan with the pieces of game. Let them heat very gradually, and on no account allow them to boil. Pile them on a hot dish, pour the hot sauce over them, and garnish with fried sippets. If there is no brown sauce at hand, it may be prepared as follows. Mince finely a quarter of a pound of the lean of an unboiled ham, and put it into a saucepan, with two ounces of fresh butter, a shallot, a large scraped carrot, two or three mushrooms (if at hand), a blade of mace, a small sprig of thyme, a handful of parsley, two cloves, and half a dozen pepper-corns. Stir these over a slow fire until they are brightly browned; then dredge a table-spoonful of flour over them, and let it colour also. Pour in gradually three-quarters of a pint of water, and a glassful of sherry, and add a little salt, and the bones and trimmings of the pheasant; let the sauce boil up, then draw the saucepan to the side of the fire, and let it keep simmering for an hour and a half. Strain the gravy, and skim carefully. Put it back into the saucepan with the joints of meat, a lump of sugar, and a little lemon-juice, or Seville orange-juice; heat slowly, and serve as above. Time: twenty to thirty minutes to roast the pheasant; a quarter of an hour in the first instance, or an hour and a half in the second, to simmer the sauce. Probable cost, 1s., exclusive of the pheasant. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A salmi is a two-stage dish: the bird is part-roasted, jointed, and then finished in a sauce built from its own carcass. The whole thing succeeds or fails on the reheating.
- Never let it boilThe joints go into the strained sauce and are brought up to serving heat only — a bare shiver, no bubbles. Boiling squeezes the fibres of already-roasted game and turns pheasant breast dry and stringy in a minute or two.
- "Well-hung"Victorian game was hung several days to a week or more, often to a degree modern palates would refuse. Any pheasant sold today is aged to the butcher's judgement and is ready to cook as bought; no further hanging at home.
- Part-roastingTwenty to thirty minutes of roasting is what the recipe allows to reach the "little more than half-done" stage; no temperature is given, and the original assumes an open fire rather than an oven. Cool it before jointing — warm meat tears and the skin will not strip cleanly.
- MeasuresHalf a pint is 10 fl oz (a scant 1 1/4 US cups), three-quarters of a pint 15 fl oz. A "glassful" of sherry is not defined in the recipe; a Victorian wineglassful is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz. A blade of mace is one shard of the dried nutmeg husk; a pinch of ground mace substitutes.
- The brown sauceThe second method is an espagnole in miniature: ham, aromatics and a browned flour roux simmered an hour and a half. Do not rush the initial browning of the vegetables and ham — that colour is the whole flavour of the finished sauce.
- "Unboiled ham"Raw cured ham, not the cooked pink kind. Prosciutto ends, speck, or a piece of unsmoked green bacon all work; a smoked hock will push the sauce toward ham soup.
- Fried sippetsTriangles of bread fried in butter or clarified fat until crisp, arranged round the dish. Fry them last so they stay dry under the sauce.
- YieldFive or six portions from one bird is optimistic by modern serving sizes. Reckon on three to four, or use two pheasants and scale the sauce accordingly.
Salmi (also salmis) is one of the classic French treatments for feathered game; the name is generally derived from the older French salmigondis, a hotchpotch, though the derivation is traditional rather than certain. Its logic is thrift as much as flavour: the bird is roasted only partly, and the bones then build the sauce that finishes the meat. The dish belonged to the shooting season, and the costing gives a shilling "exclusive of the pheasant" — the cook is accounted only for the butter, ham and sherry. Salmis of pheasant, partridge and woodcock appear across nineteenth-century English cookery books.