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Birds in Batter
3-4 CUPS CHOPPED CABBAGE BUTTER SALT AND PEPPER 4-6 QUAIL OR OTHER SMALL BIRDS I CUP MILK 4-6 SPRIGS PARSLEY OR CELERY 2 EGGS, BEATEN VERY LIGHT 2 TABLESPOONS MELTED BUTTER I CUP FLOUR Fry cabbage in 2-3 tablespoons butter until partly browned but not tender, season it and place in bottom of baking dish. Season birds, put 1 parsley or celery sprig in each, lay them close together in circle on cabbage, dot with butter , and scatter their chopped giblets over and around them. Mix eggs, milk and melted butter. Mix flour with 1/2 teaspoon salt and stir into egg-milk mixture, beating until batter is smooth without lumps. Pour over birds and bake 45 minutes in Dutch oven with moderate heat. The batter prevents juice and flavor of birds from escaping, and should bake light, golden brown, and crisp. Serve surrounding crust and cabbage with each bird.
A Yorkshire-pudding batter poured over small game birds on a bed of fried cabbage, baked in a Dutch oven. The hinge is heat: the batter needs a steady, fairly brisk oven to puff and crisp, while the birds are small enough to overcook long before the 45 minutes are up.
- Oven temperature"Moderate heat" is usually read as somewhere around 350-375F, though the book gives no figure. In a 12-inch camp oven that is roughly 8-9 coals underneath and 16-18 on the lid; indoors, a heavy pot in a 375F oven, left uncovered so the batter can brown.
- Birds and donenessPoultry is generally reckoned done at 165F in the thigh, and small birds can reach that well before the 45 minutes are up -- though the batter covering them slows the heat, so any timing is a guess. The full 45 minutes is really the batter's timing, not the birds'. Expect firm, well-done meat; if you want the breasts pink, use larger birds such as squab or partridge.
- Check for shotWild-shot birds carry pellets and bone fragments. Run a finger through the body cavity and over the breast before seasoning, and warn anyone at the table.
- The batter1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons melted butter is close to a standard popover ratio. Resting the batter before baking is common practice, and it climbs best against a hot, buttered surface. Note that the recipe itself pours the batter over the birds and relies on it as a seal.
- Cabbage first"Partly browned but not tender" matters. Cabbage cooked soft at this stage will release water into the batter and give you a soggy underside. Take it just to the point where the edges catch color.
- GibletsQuail giblets are tiny and easily lost. Chop them fine; the recipe scatters them over and around the birds. Livers are best added late, as long cooking leaves them dry and grainy.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield. Four to six birds will stretch to four servings with the crust and cabbage counted as the starch and vegetable, though quail are small and often reckoned two to a person.
Batter-baked meat belongs to the same English tradition as toad-in-the-hole and the dripping pudding set beneath a roasting joint, where a cheap flour-and-egg batter caught the fat and juices and stretched a small quantity of meat into a full dish. Applied to game, it answers a real problem: quail, dove and woodcock carry almost no fat and dry out fast over open heat, so sealing them under batter is practical as much as culinary. The Dutch oven instruction fits camp and hunting-cabin cooking, though in period American books "Dutch oven" can equally mean a heavy lidded pot used on a stove or hearth, so it is not by itself proof of camp origin. The vague "quail or other small birds" leaves the species open to whatever the day's shooting produced.