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Woodcock Pudding
Pluck a woodcock very carefully, so as not to injure the tender flesh, and, without opening it, truss it for roasting. Line a pudding basin with pastry. Put into it a slice of tender rump steak seasoned with pepper and salt only, put in the woodcock, and place another steak over it. Pour over the meat a quarter of a pint of strong beef gravy, cover the basin with pastry, tie it rather loosely in a floured cloth, plunge it into boiling water, and keep the pudding boiling till done enough. Take it up, let it stand a few minutes, turn it upon a dish, and serve. Time to boil the pudding, two hours and a half. Probable cost, uncertain. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A boiled suet pudding built around a whole game bird, from the era when a pudding basin and a cloth did the work of a casserole. Most of the difficulty now is sourcing rather than technique.
- The pastry is suet crustThe pastry is most likely suet crust -- for a boiled pudding of this kind suet crust was the usual choice, though the recipe itself does not say so: roughly 8 oz flour to 4 oz shredded suet and cold water to a firm dough. Short or puff pastry does not stand up to two and a half hours of boiling.
- "Without opening it"This is the hinge of the recipe. Woodcock is traditionally cooked undrawn, the trail (intestines) left in as the prized part of the flavour, though the gizzard is normally removed. If the idea does not appeal, draw the bird and the pudding still works, but it becomes a beef and game pudding rather than the dish intended.
- Quarter of a pintAn imperial quarter-pint is 5 fl oz, a scant two-thirds of a US cup. Use a well-reduced brown stock, not a thin broth; the pastry absorbs liquid and the gravy is the only sauce.
- Basin and clothA 1.5-pint (about 750 ml) basin suits one woodcock and two thin steaks. Tie the floured cloth loosely, as directed, so the crust can rise; a sheet of pleated parchment under foil and string does the same job with less fuss.
- Boiling and topping upThe water should come two-thirds up the basin and stay at a steady boil for the full two and a half hours. Keep a kettle going and top up with boiling water only, or the pudding will stall and the crust turn heavy.
- Sourcing the birdWoodcock is a wild game bird sold only in season and only by game dealers, and in North America it cannot be bought commercially at all. Two quail or a pair of snipe stand in reasonably; adjust nothing else.
- Lead shotAny shot bird carries the risk of pellets. Feel over the breast and thighs before trussing and warn whoever is eating it.
- ServingRest it a few minutes before turning out, as instructed, or the crust tears. It feeds four or five as the original says, but only as part of a larger meal; the bird itself divides into two modest portions.
Boiled meat puddings enclosing a whole bird were a Victorian dining-room set piece, and this one is the game equivalent of beefsteak and lark or beefsteak and oyster puddings of the same kind. The steak above and below is not padding but insulation: it keeps the woodcock's thin flesh from drying while the suet crust takes its two and a half hours. Woodcock itself was among the most highly regarded of English game birds, and it was conventionally roasted or cooked undrawn, trail and all, on toast to catch the juices. The entry's "probable cost, uncertain" seems telling. Cassell's priced almost everything for a household budget, but a woodcock came from a gun or a game dealer's chance supply, not a fixed market rate.