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Snipes, Pudding Of
An excellent pudding may be made with snipes and woodcock, as well as with small wild fowl of various kinds. Pluck and singe a brace of snipes, and divide them into halves. Take away the gizzards with the point of a knife, and leave the trails untouched. Season the birds with salt and cayenne. Line a pudding-basin with suet crust. Lay in it a slice of rump steak seasoned with pepper and salt only, put in the snipes, and place upon them another slice of rump steak. Pour upon the meat a quarter of a pint of good beef gravy, cover with pastry, press the edges together with the finger and thumb, and steam or boil the pudding till done enough. Turn it out carefully, and serve very hot. A few slices of truffle may be added to the pudding or not. Time to boil the pudding, two hours and a half. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A steamed suet pudding in the Victorian manner, with the birds sealed inside a crust with beefsteak. The book assumes you know how to make suet paste and how big a basin to use, so those are the gaps to fill.
- Suet crust, unquantifiedNo proportions are given. A standard suet paste is roughly 8 oz self-raising flour (or plain flour with 2 tsp baking powder) to 4 oz shredded beef suet, a pinch of salt, and cold water to a firm dough. That lines a 1½-pint basin with enough left for the lid.
- "A brace" and basin sizeA brace is two birds. Two snipe, halved, plus two slices of rump steak fit a 1½- to 2-pint pudding basin; woodcock are larger, so allow the bigger basin for a brace of those.
- A quarter of a pintIn an English book this is 5 fl oz (about 140 ml) of the "good beef gravy" the recipe calls for, not the 4 fl oz of a US quarter-pint. It should moisten the meat, not fill the basin — steam and the meat's own juices do the rest.
- The trailsLeaving the intestines in snipe and woodcock while removing only the gizzard is deliberate, not an oversight; they melt into the gravy and are the whole point of the dish for traditionalists. If that is not to your taste, draw the birds fully and the pudding still works, though it loses its character.
- Steaming, not boiling dryCover the basin with pleated greaseproof paper and foil, or a floured cloth tied under the rim, and keep it in simmering water reaching halfway up the basin. Top up with boiling water as it evaporates — if the pan runs dry the crust scorches and the pudding collapses when turned out.
- Two and a half hoursThe time is right for suet paste, which needs long steady steam to become light rather than leaden. Small birds this size would be overcooked by it in any other method, but sealed in crust with steak above and below they stay moist.
- Sourcing the birdsSnipe and woodcock are shot game with legal seasons and are not sold in supermarkets; a game dealer in autumn or winter is the only realistic source. Quail or partridge substitute reasonably well, though they lack the strong flavour the recipe is built around.
- Turning outRest the pudding five minutes off the heat before inverting onto a warmed deep dish — the crust firms slightly and is far less likely to split and lose its gravy. Serves four or five as the book says, with nothing more than potatoes.
Meat puddings sealed in suet paste were English kitchen economy at its most confident: the crust acts as both cooking vessel and dish, trapping juices that a roast would lose to the dripping pan. Snipe and woodcock were prized above almost all other small game in the nineteenth century, partly because they were traditionally held to be clean-feeding birds whose entrails could be left in and eaten — the "trail" spread on toast was a delicacy. The pudding belongs to a family of steak-and-game puddings descended from the same tradition as steak and kidney, where rump steak lines the basin to protect and baste the more delicate flesh inside. The optional truffle marks it as a recipe aimed at households with some money to spend, as does the assumption that a brace of shot birds is simply to hand in season.