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Snipes, Roasted
Pluck the birds very carefully so as not to tear the tender skin, and singe and truss without drawing them (see SNIPES, TO TRUSS). Hang the birds feet downwards to a spit, put them to a clear fire, and baste frequently with butter or dripping. When they have been down five minutes, put under them slices of the crumb of bread toasted and buttered on both sides. This toast is intended to catch the droppings of the trail, and is considered by epicures a greater delicacy than the bird itself. A slice should be allowed for each snipe. After the toast is put under the birds, a dish should be held under them when they are basted. When they are done enough, which will be when the steam draws to the fire, flour and brown them. Take them up, dish them with a slice of toast under each, and serve without any sauce in the dish with them. If liked, a slice of lemon may accompany the birds, or a little plain melted butter may be sent to table in a tureen. Snipes should be served very hot, or they will be comparatively worthless. They should not be over roasted; indeed, it is said that some epicures consider they are in perfection when they have been simply carried through a hot kitchen. The thigh is the best part. Garnish the dish with water-cress. Some cooks tie slices of bacon round the birds before roasting them. Time to roast, twenty to twenty-five minutes; five minutes less if liked underdone. Probable cost, 2s. to 3s. per brace. Sufficient, four snipes for a dish.
A Victorian spit recipe for a bird few cooks now handle, and one whose whole point is the toast underneath. Everything else is secondary.
- The toast is the dishBecause the birds are roasted undrawn, the melted trail drips onto the buttered toast set beneath them, and that toast was genuinely prized above the meat. One slice per bird, buttered on both sides, put in place five minutes after the birds go down so the first fat has already run.
- Spit to ovenWithout a spit, roast on a rack set over the toast in a shallow tin, in a hot oven; somewhere around 425 to 450F answers, though the book gives no temperature and calls only for a clear fire. Snipe are small enough that a slack oven merely steams them.
- Timings to disregardTwenty to twenty-five minutes will reduce a four-ounce bird to dry fibre. Modern game cooks give snipe roughly 8 to 12 minutes in a hot oven, resting a few minutes after; the book's own remark about carrying them through a hot kitchen shows where its sympathies lay.
- "When the steam draws to the fire"The old test for doneness: moisture beading and streaming from the vent toward the heat. In an oven, judge by feel and by juices at the thigh joint rather than looking for this sign.
- Undrawn birdsThe intestine is left in and eaten, which is standard for snipe and woodcock but unfamiliar to most cooks now; the gizzard is usually taken out, though the trussing itself is described in the separate entry the recipe refers to. If the trail is not wanted, the birds must be drawn, and the toast then catches only butter and dripping.
- Flour and brownA light dusting of flour in the last minutes, with a final baste, was the standard Victorian finish for a crisp glaze. It happens fast at this heat — watch it rather than timing it.
- Bacon or notThe bacon jacket mentioned at the end protects the breast but blocks browning; if used, remove it for the last few minutes so the skin can colour.
- SourcingSnipe are game birds with restricted seasons and bag limits in both Britain and North America, and in many places are simply unavailable commercially. Buy from a reputable game dealer, and expect them sold in braces, plucked to order or in feather.
- Yield and serviceFour snipe to a dish serves two generously as a course, one bird and one slice of toast per person if part of a longer meal. Serve very hot with watercress, a lemon wedge, and melted butter in a jug if wanted — no sauce in the dish.
Snipe belonged to the small class of birds the nineteenth century cooked undrawn, along with woodcock and occasionally plover: theory was that a bird feeding on clean marsh invertebrates carried nothing in its gut that needed removing, and the "trail" was treated as the finest part, which is why the toast beneath it mattered more to Cassell's epicures than the meat. The dish is essentially the French bu00 e0 cassine sur canapé, and it appears in a general dictionary of cookery because in the 1870s and 80s game was a routine feature of middle-class dinners, supplied by dealers in braces and priced, as here, by the pair. The labour of plucking a bird that small without tearing the skin was a real part of its cost. The bird's long, probing bill and erratic flight made it notoriously hard to shoot, and the marksmen who managed it are generally credited with giving English the word "sniper."