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Heasants, Partridges, Quail and Grouse
The methods of cooking all these birds are substantially the same. They should never be washed, but simply wiped with a damp towel, all shot being carefully picked out of the flesh with a sharp-pointed knife.
BROILED-Clean the birds and split them down the back. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, dust with flour to keep in the juices, and broil in a wire broiler, laying the inside to the fire first. When done, allowing about ten minutes for quail, twenty-five to forty for partridge and pheasant, lay them on a warm dish, butter them on both sides, and serve. During the broiling, if the breasts are quite thick, cover the broiler with a pan, and see that the fire is not too hot. Broiled quail are considered very nourishing food for invalids.
PANNED-Clean, and split the birds down the back. Dip them quickly in cold water, and sprinkle with salt, pepper and flour. The water causes the seasoning to adhere more thickly to the meat. Place the birds in a small baking-dish, with the inside of each upward; place a small piece of butter in each bird, add a cup of water, and roast in the oven, allowing fifteen to twenty minutes for quail and proportionately longer for larger birds, basting every five minutes after the first fifteen. Thicken the gravy, add salt and pepper, if necessary, and pour the gravy over the birds. ROASTED-Clean, truss and stuff the birds the same as turkey, and bake until brown, basting often with butter and water. Thicken the gravy and pour it over the birds. Serve with hot crumbs and bread sauce.
Nearly all small birds are served with their heads on, these being skinned when the birds are cleaned. There is a difference of opinion among epicures as to the drawing of these birds, many cooking them undrawn. The English do not draw woodcock, regarding the entrails as not the least delicious part of the bird; and some American housekeepers copy them in this respect.
Game should not be kept too long. Venison may be hung three weeks in cold weather, but birds should rarely be hung longer than one week. If birds are to be kept many days, draw but do not pick them, place a piece of charcoal in the body, and sift powdered charcoal into the feathers. A very important distinction must be made between white meat and dark meat in cooking game. Quail and partridge are white meat and, like chicken, must be thoroughly cooked but not dried. Duck, pigeons or squabs, grouse (prairie chicken), snipe and woodcock are dark meat and should be cooked rare and served very hot.
These are four methods rather than one recipe, written for birds brought in from a hunt and often bought whole and undressed at market. Most of it transfers directly; two of the instructions do not.
- Draw the birdsThe passage records the fashion for cooking small game undrawn, entrails and all. Do not follow it. The gut contents spoil quickly and taint the flesh, and there is no way to bring them to a safe temperature inside a bird cooked to the doneness described here.
- Skip the charcoal keepingHanging birds for up to a week and, for longer keeping, drawing but not plucking them and packing charcoal into the cavity and feathers was a real preservation practice, but it depends on a cold larder no modern kitchen has. Refrigerate dressed birds and cook them within two or three days, or freeze them.
- The wire broilerA hinged wire broiler held the split bird over an open coal or wood fire, turned as a unit. A charcoal grill is the nearest equivalent; under a gas or electric broiler, set the rack far enough down that the flour dusting browns rather than scorches. The advice to cover the broiler with a pan is a heat shield for thick breasts and still works.
- Times and donenessTen minutes for split quail is about right. Twenty-five to forty minutes over direct heat will dry a pheasant badly; roast or pan-roast it instead and take the breast to 155-160F, resting to carry over. Whole small birds are safest judged at 165F in the thigh.
- "Panned" means oven-braisedNo temperature is given, as was usual in books of this date, when few home ranges carried a reliable oven thermometer. Use 400F: hot enough to brown the floured skin, moderate enough that the cup of water in the dish keeps steaming rather than boiling away before the basting starts.
- Lean birds need fatWild pheasant, partridge and quail carry almost no fat, which is why butter appears in every method here. Bard the breasts with bacon or a buttered paper if roasting whole, and consider a short brine for farmed birds, which are milder and still lean.
- Shot and headsFarmed birds sold today come dressed and shot-free, so the knife work is moot. If you are handling shot game, pick out pellets and any bloodshot tissue; lead shot fragments spread further through the flesh than the visible pellet suggests. The heads-on presentation is optional and now rare.
- To serveAllow one to two quail per person, a partridge or grouse for one to two, a pheasant for two to three. "Hot crumbs" are breadcrumbs fried in butter, strewn over the bird; bread sauce is milk infused with onion and clove, thickened with crumbs.
The Butterick Cook Book (1911) came from a pattern-and-magazine publisher writing for middle-class households, which is why game birds appear here as ordinary market goods rather than as sportsmen's trophies: wild quail, grouse, snipe and woodcock were still sold commercially in American cities into the early twentieth century, shipped in barrels from the prairies and the South. That trade was already closing as this book was printed — the Lacey Act of 1900 curbed interstate traffic in illegally taken game, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 ended market hunting of migratory species outright, while state bans on the sale of wild game closed the market in non-migratory birds such as pheasant, partridge and quail, which now reach a kitchen from a farm, and woodcock and snipe cannot be bought at all. The note that broiled quail is "very nourishing food for invalids" belongs to an older medical vocabulary in which white meat, plainly cooked and lightly seasoned, was thought the most digestible of foods; a broiled bird was a standard sickroom dish in nineteenth-century household manuals.