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Casserole
6 Birds or More 8 Small Onions 1/2 Small Cauliflower Divided in Pieces 1 Large Turnip Cut in Pieces 1 Beet Cut in Pieces 6 Small Carrots (French) 6 Small Round Potatoes 1 Cup Green Peas 1 Small Bit of Cabbage Salt and Pepper to Taste Line a tight fitting kettle with thin slices of salt pork larding; tie birds so as to retain shape and put in the kettle; spread the vegetables over the birds and cover top with thin slices of the larding.
No water will be required. Put on the tight fitting cover and set back on the range or bake in a slow oven for three or four hours. Use an earthen kettle if possible.
A dry-cooked pot of game birds and root vegetables that relies entirely on a sealed vessel: there is no added liquid, so everything the dish braises in comes out of the pork fat and the vegetables. Get the seal right and the rest is straightforward.
- The seal is the whole recipe"No water will be required" only holds if nothing escapes as steam. Modern pot lids rarely fit tightly enough, so lay a sheet of parchment or foil over the rim before setting the lid on, and do not lift it to look.
- "Casserole" here means the potIn this recipe the word refers to the covered vessel rather than to a baked dish, though the food sense was also in circulation by this date. The instruction to "use an earthen kettle if possible" points to an earthenware or clay pot; a heavy enamelled cast-iron Dutch oven with a snug lid is the practical stand-in.
- Slow ovenRead that as roughly 275 to 300F. "Set back on the range" means the cool rear of a wood or coal range, the equivalent of the lowest steady heat you can hold.
- What "6 birds" meansSmall game birds: quail at roughly 4 to 6 ounces each, or larger birds such as squab or partridge nearer 12 to 16 ounces. Six quail feed three or four people; two Cornish hens cover the same ground if you cannot get game.
- Wild birds and the lawCookbooks of this era treated songbirds, plover and other small wild species as fair game. Nearly all native North American birds are now protected, and wild game generally cannot be bought. Use farmed quail, squab or poussin.
- Three to four hours is for tough old birdsFarmed quail and squab are tender and will be dry long before that. Check at 60 to 75 minutes for quail, about 90 minutes for squab; the vegetables will be done in the same span. Longer times suit an older wild bird or a pheasant.
- Salt pork and seasoningThe "larding" is thin sheets of salt pork lining the bottom and covering the top, which baste the birds as they render. It is salty, so hold back on added salt until the end. Rinse very salty pork before slicing.
- The beet and the peasA beet cut in pieces will stain everything in the pot magenta; cook it separately if you want the turnip and cauliflower to stay pale. Green peas turn grey and mealy over hours of covered heat, so stir them in during the last ten minutes.
"Casserole" entered English kitchens as the name of the vessel rather than the food, from the French casserole, a pan; dishes cooked and served in one were described on menus as "en casserole," and only later did the word slide over to mean the contents. This recipe belongs to the older sense, and its call for an earthen kettle is sound: a thick clay pot heats evenly and slowly, which is what a liquid-free braise needs. The method might be compared to the French cocotte or daube stripped of its wine, relying on fat-lined walls and a sealed lid to keep the birds moist. Its presence in a bride's cookbook under "Poultry and Game" is a reminder that small wild birds were still ordinary household food in the early twentieth century, brought home by a hunting husband or bought by the half-dozen at market, a trade that federal migratory bird protection later ended.