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WOODCOCK, POTTED (another way) (Pick and clean the birds)
Pick and clean the birds nicely, but do not draw out the trail; fix the bills to the thighs, and the legs on the breasts, with small skewers; season them highly with mace, pepper, and salt, and put them into a deep pot with fresh butter to bake in a moderate oven. When done enough, take them out to drain on a sieve, and when cold, place them in pots, and cover them completely with clarified butter. Tie bladder over them securely to exclude the air, and set them in a dry place.
This is a preserving recipe, not simply a cooking one: the birds are baked, sealed under butter and stored at room temperature for weeks. That storage method is the problem, and it cannot be salvaged by adjusting the oven.
- Why the butter seal is unsafeCooked meat packed under clarified butter and sealed with bladder is an oxygen-free, low-acid, low-salt environment held at ambient temperature — the precise conditions in which Clostridium botulinum spores germinate and produce toxin. The spores survive baking, and the toxin is odourless and tasteless in the finished pot.
- No measured cureThe seasoning here is mace, pepper and salt "highly" — no weight, no ratio, no nitrite. Nothing in the recipe brings the salt concentration or water activity down to a level that inhibits spore growth, which is what genuine preserved potted meats rely on.
- The trailWoodcock are traditionally cooked undrawn, the intestines being considered a delicacy. Whatever one thinks of the flavour, leaving gut contents in a bird that will then be sealed anaerobically and kept at larder or room temperature compounds the microbiological problem considerably.
- No internal temperature"When done enough" in a moderate oven — a term the recipe never quantifies, and conventionally glossed today as somewhere in the region of 350F — gives no guarantee the birds reached a safe centre temperature. Small game birds were, and still are, often served pink; that is a defensible choice for immediate eating and an indefensible one for something destined for long storage.
- Sourcing the birdAmerican woodcock is a federally protected migratory game bird in the United States and cannot be bought or sold; it reaches the kitchen only through licensed hunting in season. Eurasian woodcock is legally sold by British and European game dealers within its season.
- BladderA pig or ox bladder, soaked and tied wet over the pot so it shrank airtight as it dried. It is no longer a routine butcher's item, though specialist suppliers still sell them.
- If you want potted gameUse a current recipe that specifies refrigeration and a short keeping time, or one that treats the potted bird as a fresh preparation to be eaten within a few days.
Potting was the English answer to the glut that followed a good shoot: meat packed tight and sealed under a cap of clarified butter that excluded air and, in a cold larder, bought weeks of keeping. Woodcock was a fixture of the Victorian game season. The instruction not to draw the bird reflects a long-standing English preference — the trail, the intestines, was spread on toast beneath the roasting bird and counted among the finest things on the table, woodcock being said to void themselves in flight. The bladder tied over the pot was standard sealing practice before jars with rubber rings.