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Chartreuse of Partridges
Cut a cabbage into quarters, wash it well, plunge it into boiling water, then soak it in cold water for two hours. Drain and squeeze all the water out of the cabbage, cut the stalks out, tie the pieces together, and put them in a stewpan with two or three slices of streaky bacon previously blanched; pour some general stock, mixed with essence of partridge, over it, put in some clarified fat, and finish as described for Cabbage for Garnishing. Cut some carrots and turnips into slices two inches long with a vegetable cutter, and cook them separately, as described for Garnishes. Put a round of paper at the bottom of a plain entree-mould that has been buttered, garnish it with pieces of carrot and turnip, and put a layer of cabbage in the mould. Cut up three roast partridges, put four fillets on the cabbage, then put another layer of the cabbage on them; continue with alternate layers of partridge and cabbage till the mould is full. Stand the mould in a bain-marie till the contents are warm. When ready to serve turn the chartreuse onto an entree dish, and arrange alternately round the base some rounds of carrots and turnips, with a string bean between each. Put some rings of turnip round the top of the chartreuse and a Brussels sprout in each. Make a sort of cup or vase with a carrot, fill it with string beans, and place it in the center. Reduce some Spanish sauce with essence of partridge, fill a sauceboat with it, and serve with the chartreuse.
This is a composed cold-kitchen exercise more than a cookery lesson: three already-roasted birds are packed into a lined mould with braised cabbage and rewarmed gently. Everything depends on the mould coming out clean, so build it deliberately.
- The hinge: pack tight, warm gentlyThe chartreuse depends largely on compression, so press each layer of cabbage down firmly and leave no gaps against the mould wall. It is reheated in a bain-marie, not baked; the recipe gives no time, only "till the contents are warm," so judge it by feel rather than the clock.
- PartridgesGrey partridge runs about 12-14 oz, red-legged rather heavier, and each bird gives two small breast fillets. The original builds the layers by fillet count rather than by bird. Squab, quail (allow two per partridge) or boned poussin can stand in; the legs are best pulled off the bone and used in the middle layers.
- Essence of partridgePresumably a separate preparation given elsewhere in the book: the carcasses and trimmings browned and simmered down to a dark, concentrated broth. Roast the bones, deglaze, cover with stock and reduce hard until it coats a spoon. It supplies most of the game flavour, since the birds themselves are already cooked.
- General stock and Spanish sauce"General stock" is the kitchen's all-purpose brown stock. Spanish sauce is sauce espagnole - brown roux, brown stock, mirepoix and tomato, simmered and strained. A good demi-glace reduced with the partridge essence gets you to the same place.
- Clarified fatFat clarified of its solids and impurities: rendered pork or beef fat, or fat skimmed from stock. It seals the braising cabbage and keeps it glossy; clarified butter works the same way. The recipe does not say which fat is meant.
- Cabbage and the two-hour soakThe blanch-then-soak is there to take the rankness off the cabbage and soften the leaves so they can be packed. Two hours in cold water is longer than most modern recipes ask for, but the squeezing-dry step is not optional, as wet cabbage will slump when unmoulded.
- Mould and paper roundA "plain entree-mould" is a smooth-sided mould of the charlotte type, undecorated. The recipe gives no size; take one that will hold three birds' worth of fillets in alternating layers. Butter it, then line the base with a cut round of paper before laying in the carrot and turnip - this is what lets the pattern release intact.
- Cross-referencesTwo steps point elsewhere in the book: "Cabbage for Garnishing" for finishing the braised cabbage, and "Garnishes" for the carrot and turnip, which are cooked separately so they hold their shape against the mould. Neither method is given on this page.
- YieldThree partridges will serve four as a main course or six as an entree in the older sense. Turn it out at the table if you can; a cut chartreuse does not hold its shape long.
The chartreuse takes its name from the Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, and the association is traditional rather than documented: the monastic diet excluded meat, so a vegetable-lined mould is often said to have been a way of concealing game from view, or of dressing vegetables up to look like a grand entree. By the nineteenth century the meaning had inverted entirely - in Carême's hands and after, the chartreuse became one of the most laborious show pieces in the French repertoire, a mosaic of turned carrot, turnip and bean built inside a mould around game birds. The dish also tells you something about the period's game supply: three roast partridges used as a component, not a course, assume a market where wild birds arrived by the crate each autumn.