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To Cook Partridges and Pheasants
Place them in a steamer, over a pot of boiling water, till tender. Have ready a saucepan of large fresh oysters, scalded just enough to make them plump and seasoned with pepper-sauce, butter, and a little salt. Rub the cavity of the birds with salt and pepper, fill with oysters and sew up. Broil till a light brown. Place on a hot dish and sift over them browned cracker. Add a large tablespoonful of butter and one of pounded cracker to the oyster liquor. Boil it up once and pour into the dish, but not over the birds.--Mrs. T.
A two-stage method: moist heat first to bring lean game birds to tenderness, then dry heat for color. The order matters, and so does keeping the oysters out of the long cooking.
- The hinge: steam first, brown lastPartridge and pheasant have almost no fat, and roasting them from raw dries the breast. Steam over boiling water until the joints move freely; the recipe gives no time, and a partridge may take something like half an hour while a whole pheasant will need considerably longer. Then a short pass under high heat gives tenderness and color both.
- Oysters need two minutes, not more"Scalded just enough to make them plump" is the whole instruction. Hold them in their own liquor just below a simmer until the edges ruffle, about 1-2 minutes, then lift them out. Oysters that boil, or that sit inside a bird through a long broil, turn to rubber.
- Broiling temperatureA modern gas or electric broiler at full heat, birds 4-5 inches from the element, needs only 4-6 minutes with a turn to reach "a light brown." The birds are already cooked through; this step is purely for surface color, so watch it rather than timing it.
- Pepper-sauceThis means a thin vinegar-and-hot-pepper sauce of the type still sold as Louisiana-style hot sauce, not a thick chili paste. The recipe gives no quantity; a small amount, a teaspoon or so, is in keeping.
- Browned cracker and pounded crackerBoth are dry soda or water crackers crushed fine. "Browned" ones are toasted first, in a dry pan or a 350F oven, and sifted over the birds as a garnish; "pounded" ones are plain and go into the oyster liquor as a thickener.
- Sewing upTrussing thread or plain cotton kitchen twine and a large needle. A skewer or two through the vent works as well and comes out faster at table.
- The sauceThe oyster liquor, a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of cracker crumbs make a very small quantity of thin gravy — enough to pool under two or three birds. Boil it up once only; longer cooking makes it pasty. Poured around rather than over so the crumbed skin stays crisp.
- Birds and yieldA dressed partridge or quail is a single serving; a pheasant of 2-3 lb serves two. The recipe specifies only 'a saucepan' of oysters, no measure.
Oysters stuffed into game birds turn up often in Chesapeake and tidewater Virginia cooking, though the combination was common across American and English cookery of the period; both were abundant and cheap in the same cold months, since oyster season and shooting season overlap. Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1879, was assembled from contributions by named Virginia housewives, which is why so many entries close with an initial like "Mrs. T." The recipes were written for cooks who already knew the work, hence the absence of quantities and times. Note also that "partridge" in the American South of this period usually meant the bobwhite quail, not the European grey partridge, a piece of transplanted English vocabulary that still causes confusion in old game recipes.