No. 2097

Partridges a la Soyer

Perdreaux a la Soyer

Make a forcemeat with the partridge livers and a few chopped chicken livers; knead in a piece of butter, pepper, salt, a little shallot previously fried lightly in butter and chopped parsley. Have two trussed partridges (No. 179); put about two ounces of this prepared forcemeat into each one, and cook them on the spit for half an hour; dress on canapes, and pour some clear gravy (No. 404) under. Serve separately the same time as the partridges an English bread sauce (No. 438).

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For the Modern Kitchen

A short, confident 19th-century game recipe that leans on three cross-references the modern reader does not have. Here is what those numbers stood for and what the method needs today.

The cross-referenced numbersNo. 179 is Ranhofer's entry for trussing partridges, No. 404 a clear gravy and No. 438 an English bread sauce, as the recipe text itself indicates. The exact composition of those three entries is not given on this page; any good version of them will serve.
CanapésCanapés here are not canapés in the modern party sense. In this period a canapé under roast game is generally a slice of bread, crust removed, fried in butter or fat and set beneath the bird to catch the juices; this recipe gives no description of its own. Cut them slightly larger than the footprint of each partridge.
Spit to ovenThe recipe specifies half an hour on the spit and gives no oven setting. A very hot oven, in the region of 425F for roughly 25-35 minutes, is a practical modern substitute, with two or three turns of the bird; barding with pork fat or bacon is a modern addition, not part of the original. A rotisserie attachment reproduces the original more faithfully.
DonenessRanhofer gives no internal temperature. Partridge is small and very lean; the breast is at its best around 150-155F and will be dry well before 170F. The liver forcemeat inside the cavity, however, should reach 165F, so check the stuffing rather than the meat if you want a single number.
The forcemeatTwo partridge livers are barely a tablespoon, hence the chicken livers. Trim the green-tinged bile spots, chop rather than purée — the texture should be coarse — and use enough soft butter that the mixture holds together. Two ounces per bird is about a quarter cup and will fill a partridge cavity without packing it.
ShallotFry it gently until translucent only. Browned shallot turns bitter in a mixture this small and this rich, and there is nothing else in the forcemeat to hide it.
YieldTwo partridges, so two servings as a main course or four as a game course in a longer menu. Where such a dish fell in Delmonico's order of service is not stated here.
SourcingWild grey partridge is scarce; farmed red-legged partridge, sold oven-ready at roughly 12-14 oz, is the usual stand-in. If only frozen birds are available, thaw slowly and dry the skin thoroughly, or it will steam rather than brown in the half hour allowed.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's for much of the period between 1862 and 1896, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a record of the restaurant's repertoire, and its several thousand numbered entries cross-reference each other like an encyclopedia. The name presumably honours Alexis Soyer (1810-1858), the French-born chef of the Reform Club in London who became the most publicly famous cook of his generation — inventor of kitchen apparatus, author of popular cookbooks, and organiser of soup kitchens during the Irish famine and field kitchens in the Crimea. Naming a dish à la Soyer is most likely a professional salute from one chef to another rather than a claim that Soyer wrote the recipe. Bread sauce is the standard British accompaniment to roast game birds; its appearance here is not in itself evidence of a specifically Soyer connection.