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Salmis of Snipes
Divide eight cold roasted snipes into two pieces each, trim off the necks, skin the feet and place the bodies in a sautepan; put the bones and trimmings in a mortar and pound them; then put them in a saucepan with a bunch of sweet herbs, three cloves, two shallots, and one-half pint of claret. Boil quickly till the liquor has reduced to half its original quantity, then pour in one pint of Spanish sauce and let it simmer by the side of the fire for about thirty minutes, skimming frequently. Strain the sauce through a silk sieve into another saucepan and boil it quickly until it is reduced to a thick cream. Pour a little of the sauce into the sautepan with the snipes and warm without boiling. Put the pieces of snipe on a hot dish, pour the sauce over, garnish with croutons of fried bread, and serve.
Squirrels, American Style Put slices of fat bacon in a bakingdish. Skin and wash a squirrel, wipe it dry, lay it on the bacon and place two slices of fat bacon on the top. Bake in a moderate oven and when done, lay it on a hot dish and keep it in front of the fire until wanted to serve. Take the bacon out of the bakingdish, dredge into the gravy one tablespoonful of flour and stir it over the fire until it is brown. Pour into the gravy, one teacupful of brown stock, a little walnut catsup or tomato sauce and a small lump of butter. Stir the above over the fire until the butter has dissolved, then remove it, cool it a little, pour it over the squirrel, garnish with stewed corn and potato-balls, and serve.
Two game preparations run together on one page: a classic French salmis, which is a way of stretching already-roasted birds into a sauced dish, and a plainer baked squirrel. Both assume game that arrives from a hunter rather than a shop.
- The hinge: never let it boilThe snipe are already cooked. Once the sauce goes into the sautepan, the meat is only being brought up to serving heat — a simmer will squeeze the breast dry and turn the second cooking into a stew. Hold it below a tremble.
- Spanish sauceThis is sauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce: brown roux, brown veal stock, mirepoix and tomato, simmered and skimmed for hours. A pint of it is a project in itself; a well-reduced brown veal stock lightly thickened is the usual modern stand-in.
- ClaretNineteenth-century American and British usage for red Bordeaux. Any dry, moderately tannic red works, but avoid anything jammy or oaky — it concentrates twice here and sweetness becomes obtrusive.
- Silk sieveA fine-mesh conical strainer, or a chinois lined with muslin. The point is to catch the pounded bone fragments, which are what give a salmis its body but must not reach the plate.
- "Reduced to a thick cream"No dairy is involved — it describes the consistency, a sauce that coats the back of a spoon and falls in a ribbon. From a pint of espagnole plus the reduced wine, expect to finish with well under a cup.
- Moderate ovenFor the squirrel, read 350F. A young squirrel will be done in about 45 minutes to an hour; an older one is tough at any temperature and is better braised, which is why traditional recipes so often call for stewing instead.
- Teacupful and walnut catsupA teacupful is an unstandardised measure; period sources put it anywhere from about half a cup to three-quarters of a cup, so take it as roughly that range. Walnut catsup is a thin, dark, savoury condiment of green walnuts, vinegar and spice, still made by a few British firms; mushroom ketchup or a dash of Worcestershire gives a similar salty-acid depth.
- SourcingNeither snipe nor squirrel is sold in supermarkets. Wilson's snipe is a licensed game bird in much of North America with a set season and bag limit, and squirrel is likewise regulated small game — both are legal to eat if legally taken, but not to buy. Check your state or provincial regulations before assuming either is available.
- YieldEight snipe is a small bird each for eight people as a course, or four generous servings. One squirrel serves two at most.
Oscar Tschirky, the celebrated maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf, published his enormous compilation in 1896, and its game chapter reads like a snapshot of what a grand New York hotel could put on a plate before the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 ended the commercial market-gunning that supplied it. Snipe, woodcock, plover and rail reached hotel kitchens in quantity from market hunters, and a salmis — from the French, generally traced to salmigondis, a hodgepodge — was a standard professional method for turning yesterday's roasted birds into today's sauced entrée, the carcasses pounded and simmered back into the sauce so nothing was wasted. The squirrel recipe sitting beside it, labelled "American Style," is the other half of the picture: rural American game cookery, corn and potato balls and all, appearing in a French-trained hotel kitchen.