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Broiled Grouse
Singe, draw and wipe three or four grouse, split them in halves through the backs without separating the parts, lay them in a dish and season with salt, pepper and one tablespoonful of sweet oil. Roll them well in it, then put them over a brisk fire and broil for seven minutes on each side. Put one tablespoonful of butter and a finely-chopped shallot in a small saucepan on a hot range, cook for one minute, add two chopped mushrooms, moisten with one tablespoonful of rich sauce, add one tablespoonful of made mustard, stir all well together, season with salt and cayenne, and cook for one minute longer. Pour the sauce on a hot dish, place the grouse over, decorate the dish with slices of broiled bacon, lemon and truffles, and serve very hot.
A hotel game preparation from Oscar Tschirky's kitchen, written for cooks who took whole birds and a coal-fired broiler for granted. The sauce is the fussy part; the birds themselves want nothing but heat and attention.
- The hinge: don't overshoot the breastGrouse breast is very lean and turns dry and livery the moment it passes medium. Seven minutes a side over genuinely fierce heat is aimed at a bird still rosy at the bone; go by feel and the thickest part of the breast, not the clock, and rest the halves five minutes before saucing.
- Sourcing the birdsWild game birds generally cannot be sold within the United States under state and federal restrictions, so this means a hunter's birds, farmed game, or legally imported wild grouse from suppliers who handle it. Failing that, two poussins or four quail, split the same way, behave similarly under the broiler.
- Sweet oilOlive oil. In 1896 "sweet" distinguished fresh edible oil from rancid or industrial grades; any decent olive oil answers.
- Rich sauceHouse shorthand for demi-glace or a reduced brown sauce from the stockpot. A tablespoon of concentrated veal or game stock reduction does the same work; commercial demi-glace concentrate is the practical substitute.
- Made mustardPrepared mustard rather than dry powder. A full tablespoon in so little sauce is assertive by design, and it should not boil hard or it can turn bitter and grainy.
- A brisk fireThe hottest setting you have: a charcoal grill at searing heat, or a broiler element well preheated with the rack close under it. The book gives no temperatures; a moderate broiler will dry the birds long before they color.
- Splitting and shotCutting through the back and pressing the bird flat is spatchcocking; leaving the halves joined keeps them from curling. With shot birds, feel the breast and thighs for pellets before seasoning.
- Garnish and yieldTruffles are optional decoration here and add nothing structural; the bacon and lemon do the actual work. Three or four grouse split in halves serve three or four as a main course, with the sauce spread beneath rather than spooned over.
Oscar Tschirky came to the Waldorf as maître d'hôtel in 1893 and put his name to this collection a few years later, at the high-water mark of American hotel game cookery. Grouse, canvasback, snipe and plover moved through city markets in quantity in the 1890s because market hunting was still legal and refrigerated rail cars brought wild birds east by the barrel; the Lacey Act of 1900, which regulated interstate traffic in illegally taken game, and the bird protection laws that followed gradually narrowed that trade. The treatment itself is late-Victorian Anglo-French: the English broil the bird plainly and serve it with bacon and lemon, while the shallot-mushroom-mustard sauce built on a spoonful of demi-glace is straight out of the French brigade kitchen Oscar worked in. Mustard with grouse is a long-standing pairing, generally explained as a foil for the bird's strong dark flesh.