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Salmis of Partridges
Truss three perfectly fresh partridges as for roasting, put them in a saute pan with a little butter, and brown them over a brisk fire. Leave them till half cold, then cut the wings and legs off and separate the breasts; pare and trim each piece. Put the carcasses, trimmings, and some fat bacon in a stewpan, and with them prepare a little rich gravy. Fry the livers in butter, then put them in a mortar and pound them, add them to some brown sauce, stir it over the fire till hot, then skim and pass it through a fine hair-sieve. Put it again in the saucepan, strain the gravy in, turn the legs of the partridges in, and warm them. Arrange the legs on a hot dish, put the wings on them, and the breasts at the top. Put some croutons of fried bread, mushrooms, and truffles round the dish, pour the sauce into a sauceboat, and serve. Partridge Sauted, Hunter's Style Singe, draw and wipe two fine, tender partridges, cut them into twelve pieces, place them in a sautepan with one ounce of butter, add a little salt and pepper, and brown well for three minutes on each side; add a finely-chopped shallot, one-half wineglassful of Madeira wine, one-half pint of Spanish sauce, and twelve whole mushrooms. Cook for fifteen minutes longer, then serve with six croutons of bread round the dish for garnish.
Two related preparations of the same bird, both built on a classical brown sauce. The first is a true salmis: the birds are half-roasted, jointed, and finished in a sauce made from their own bones and livers, which means most of the work happens after the partridges leave the pan.
- The hinge: do not cook the breasts twiceOnly the legs go back into the sauce to warm; the breasts and wings are simply arranged on the hot dish, with the sauce sent to table separately in a sauceboat. Partridge breast is lean and dries out fast, so brown the birds only until the flesh is still rosy at the bone, and keep the plated pieces warm in a 200F oven while you finish the sauce.
- "Brisk fire" and "brown well"A brisk fire is high heat — a heavy pan over medium-high, butter foaming but not blackening. Three minutes a side on jointed pieces is browning, not cooking through; the fifteen minutes that follow do the cooking.
- Brown sauce and Spanish sauceBoth mean espagnole, the veal-stock-and-roux mother sauce of the period. A good reduced brown veal or game stock, lightly thickened, stands in for it; the recipe assumes a stockpot already running in a hotel kitchen.
- Hair sieve and mortarA hair sieve was a sieve woven of horsehair; a fine-mesh strainer or chinois does the same job. The pounded livers can go into a small food processor, but press the sauce through the sieve afterward regardless — that step is what keeps it smooth rather than grainy.
- WineglassfulIn American cookbooks of this era a wineglass is about 2 fluid ounces, so half a wineglassful of Madeira is roughly 2 tablespoons. Use a dry or medium-dry Madeira, not a sweet one.
- Sourcing the birdsWild grey and red-legged partridge are not sold in most markets. Farmed chukar partridge, or two quail per person, behave much the same; a very small poussin will do for the sauté but wants a few minutes longer.
- Truffles and mushroomsThe garnish is truffle and cultivated mushrooms; period kitchens used preserved truffles as readily as fresh. Sliced cremini browned in butter carry the dish perfectly well.
- YieldThree partridges serve three, or four at a sit-down dinner with several other courses. The sauté of two birds cut into twelve pieces is a dish for two, with the six croutons dividing neatly.
A salmis is a French restaurant technique rather than a single dish: game is partly roasted, carved, and finished in a sauce built from the pounded carcass and liver, which extracts every scrap of flavor from a small bird. The name is generally traced to salmigondis, an old French word for a hodgepodge or ragout of mixed meats, and by the nineteenth century it had narrowed to mean this specific handling of feathered game. Both this and the hunter's style sauté form part of the same repertoire. A dining room like the Waldorf's kept game birds on the menu as a matter of course, supplied by market hunters before federal law closed that trade. Oscar Tschirky's book records the working repertoire of that kitchen, which is why the instructions assume espagnole sauce and rich gravy are already at hand.