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Woodcock, Surprised
Put the trail of cold woodcocks, and two or three fat livers of fowls, upon a plate in readiness. Then chop very fine a dozen mushrooms, two shallots, and a little parsley, and fry them in a stewpan with a small bit of fresh butter. When they are nearly done, put the trail and livers to fry a little with the vegetables. Pound the whole in a marble mortar very fine, mixing the several ingredients well together. Season with salt, pepper, and the least possible dash of pounded mixed spice. Now fry of a nice colour six slices of bread of the same size and shape, and spread over them in equal portions the forcemeat you have just made with the trails of the woodcocks and the fowls' livers. Put them into the oven until they are of a good colour, then lay them on a dish, and over them place the limbs of the birds made into a salmi in the usual way, and pour the sauce over the whole.
A second-day dish built from the remains of roast woodcock: the birds' insides become a spread for fried croutes, the legs and wings a salmi laid on top. It assumes you already have cooked woodcock and a working knowledge of French kitchen shorthand.
- The trail"Trail" is the intestine of the woodcock, which is traditionally roasted inside the bird rather than drawn out. It is the whole point of the dish; without it you are making a chicken-liver toast. Note that the recipe uses the trail of cold woodcocks, meaning birds already roasted, so nothing here is raw offal from an uncooked bird.
- Sourcing the birdsWoodcock is not generally available for sale in the United States — sale of native migratory game birds is prohibited, so it usually reaches the kitchen only through a hunter. In Britain and Ireland it is sold in season through game dealers. Snipe are handled the same way; quail and squab are not, as they are drawn and have no trail.
- SalmiA salmi is a ragout of already-roasted game: the joints are reheated in a sauce built from the carcass bones, usually with red wine or stock, shallot and a little of the roasting juice. "In the usual way" assumes you have another recipe for it, which Cassell's does elsewhere; treat the salmi as a separate operation and have it hot before the croutes go in the oven.
- Stewpan and mortarA stewpan is a straight-sided saucepan — any heavy sauté pan does. The marble mortar can be replaced by a small food processor, but stop while the mixture still has some texture; pounded to a paste it spreads well, blitzed to a purée it turns gluey.
- Mixed spicePounded mixed spice in a Victorian larder was a blend along the lines of mace, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon and pepper. "The least possible dash" is not modesty — a quarter teaspoon across six croutes is plenty against the strong, slightly bitter trail.
- Frying the breadFry the slices in clarified butter or a butter-and-oil mix until crisp all the way through, and drain them well. Soft bread collapses under the forcemeat and the salmi sauce.
- The oven stageThis is a short browning, not a bake: the recipe gives no temperature, but a hot oven for a few minutes, until the surface colours, is the intent. The forcemeat is already cooked and will dry out and crumble if left longer.
- Yield and servingSix croutes serve three as a game course or six as a savoury before dessert, in the older English order of service. Pour the sauce over at the table — the croutes soften within a minute or two.
Woodcock is among the birds English and French cooks roast undrawn — snipe are treated the same way — on the argument that its diet of earthworms leaves nothing offensive in the gut; the trail, spread on toast, was considered the best part of the bird and was often the reason it was served at all. "Surprised" is often said to belong to the family of nineteenth-century menu names — en surprise, surprise — attached to dishes where one thing is concealed inside or beneath another, here the pounded trail hidden under the salmi. That Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery (issued in parts in the 1870s) gives a recipe consisting entirely of the leftovers of an earlier meal is characteristic of the book's readership: households with a game supply, a cook who understood a salmi without being told, and a firm objection to waste. It also belongs to the vanished course of the English savoury, the small, sharp, well-seasoned dish on fried bread that closed dinner rather than opening it.