Bread-crumbs (Pick and clean a nice young)

A broiled partridge in the crapaudine manner, from a period when a young game bird was a routine entrée rather than a special order. The recipe assumes the reader already knows how to chop a duxelles and manage a grill, so most of the work here is filling in what it leaves unsaid.

• The garbled titleThe heading is an artefact of indexing: the entry belongs under partridge, and the phrase "Pick and clean a nice young" is simply the first line of the method. Nothing is missing from the instructions themselves.
• Parsley, mushrooms and shalotGiven without quantity; the method implies a fine mince, chopped small enough that nothing sits proud of the surface and scorches. As an editorial starting point, about a tablespoon of chopped parsley, two mushrooms and one small shallot per bird. Note that unlike a duxelles the mixture here goes on raw. Shalot is simply the older spelling of shallot.
• Brown bread-crumbsNot fresh crumbs. These are raspings: crusts dried hard in a cooling oven and rolled or sieved to a coarse, sandy powder. They toast rather than burn under direct heat, which fresh white crumbs will not do.
• Broil means grillIn a British kitchen of this date, broiling is cooking over or under direct radiant heat — a gridiron then, an overhead grill or a hot barbecue now. Keep the bird four to five inches from the element so the crumbs colour at the same rate the flesh cooks.
• The hinge: butter before crumbs, and again afterThe two bastings are not optional garnish. The first fixes the herb mixture and the crumbs to the meat; the second, at the end, re-moistens a crust that has gone dry under the heat. Skip either and the coating falls off in the serving dish.
• Fifteen minutes, and how to check itFifteen minutes is what the recipe allows for a genuinely young bird split in half; it says nothing about turning. Modern practice is to check rather than trust the clock: 165F at the thickest part of the breast, with the leg joint no longer red at the bone. An older or larger bird will need longer and is better roasted or braised than broiled.
• Sourcing the birdGrey and red-legged partridge are seasonal and usually come from a game dealer or online supplier, often frozen. A poussin or spatchcocked quail (the latter cooking in half the time) takes the same treatment, though neither has the same depth of flavour.
• Beef-tea gravy and EspagnoleBeef tea here means a strong, clear, unthickened beef infusion used as a light jus. Espagnole is the brown mother sauce — a good reduced brown chicken or veal stock, lightly bound, is the practical modern stand-in.
• Fried strips of potatoPotato cut into strips and fried crisp rather than thick chips; straw potatoes (pommes pailles) are the likeliest reading, though the recipe specifies only 'strips'. Fry them so they are ready as the bird comes off the heat, since it is to be served very hot.
• YieldOne partridge, halved, serves one as a substantial entree or two within a longer menu.