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Baked Partridge (a I'Italienne)
Pluck and truss a brace of partridges as if for roasting, and put into each bird a force-meat made as follows: Grate 1/2 ounce of stale bread into very fine crumbs. Season these with salt and white pepper, and 1/2 dozen grates of nutmeg; work in with the fingers 1 ounce of butter, and add 1 teaspoonful of finely minced parsley, and 1 teaspoonful of lemon juice. Dip 2 sheets of note-paper into some pure salad-oil; peel, mince finely, and mix thoroughly 3 good-sized mushrooms, 1 moderate-sized carrot, 1 small onion, 2 tablespoonfuls of parsley leaves, and 1/2 dozen leaves of thyme, with 2 or 3 truffles, if these are obtainable. Divide the minced vegetables into 2 equal portions, and spread them upon the paper, lay the partridges upon them, and cover the breasts with fat bacon, tied securely round with twine, and fasten the paper. Lay the birds side by side, breasts uppermost, in a deep pan, cover the partridges closely, bake in a good oven, and baste once or twice during the process. When they are done enough, take off the paper and the bacon, put the birds on a hot dish, and pour over them a sauce made as follows: Put 1/2 a pint of good stock into a saucepan, with an onion, the trimmings of the mushrooms and truffles, a slice of carrot, and a little salt and pepper if required. Boil quickly for half an hour, then strain the sauce, thicken it with 1 dessertspoonful of flour, add a dessertspoonful of browning, 2 tablespoonfuls of claret, and the minced vegetables which covered the partridges; boil up once, and serve. Time, from thirty to forty minutes to bake the birds, if of moderate size.
A Victorian game dish cooked in an oiled paper wrapper, which is simply an early form of en papillote. Two substitutions and one temperature are all it needs.
- Use parchment, not note-paperOiled writing paper was commonly used as a wrapper in period cookery, before parchment was an ordinary household purchase; modern paper is bleached and often coated, so use baking parchment brushed with oil. Foil works but steams rather than roasts, and the vegetable layer will not take on colour.
- "A good oven" means 400-425F"A good oven" -- The recipe gives no temperature. A brisk oven, around 400F, is a reasonable modern reading of the term and fits the thirty to forty minutes given. Partridge is small and lean; check the thickest part of the thigh at 30 minutes.
- A brace is two birdsPartridges were sold and served in pairs. Two grey partridges feed two people generously, or four as part of a larger meal.
- DonenessModern practice takes the breast to 160-165F; the legs can go a little further. Beyond that a partridge dries out fast, which is exactly why the recipe bards the breast with bacon and bastes.
- The force-meat is tiny on purposeHalf an ounce of crumbs worked with an ounce of butter is only a few spoonfuls in all; the wording leaves it unclear whether that is per bird or for the brace. Either way it is a seasoned butter paste to keep the cavity moist, not a stuffing to fill it. Do not scale it up or it will slow the cooking.
- Spoon and liquid measuresA dessertspoonful is 2 teaspoons. Half an imperial pint of stock is about 1 1/4 cups; reducing it hard for half an hour is meant to concentrate it, so start with good unsalted stock and salt at the end.
- "Browning"Bottled gravy browning, a caramel colouring widely sold in the period. Use a modern gravy browning, or a teaspoon of dark caramel or a dash of mushroom ketchup; it is for colour, not flavour, and can be left out.
- Truffles and mushroomsThe recipe treats truffles as a luxury to omit, and the sauce is built from their trimmings along with the mushroom stalks. Brown or chestnut mushrooms give more of the savour the dish wants than white buttons; a little dried porcini soaked into the stock is a fair stand-in for truffle.
- ServingThe minced vegetables from the wrapper go into the finished sauce, so lift the parcels carefully and tip everything into the pan. Serve on a warmed dish with the sauce poured over, traditionally with fried breadcrumbs or game chips.
À l'italienne in nineteenth-century English cookery books rarely meant anything Italian; it generally signalled a brown sauce finished with a fine mince of mushroom, onion and herbs, close to the duxelles-based sauce italienne of French professional cookery. Wrapping in oiled paper was a domestic version of cooking en papillote, and instructions to dip "note-paper" or "kitchen paper" in salad oil turn up in period recipes, before parchment was an ordinary household purchase. Partridge belonged to a fixed autumn calendar: the British season opened on the first of September, the birds were sold by the brace, and they were commonly hung before cooking. The claret in the sauce and the parenthetical hope of truffles mark it as a recipe for a household with a wine cellar and a good grocer, if not quite a French chef.