No. 2099

Partridges Broiled—Colbert Sauce

Perdreaux Grilles Sauce Colbert

After the partridges have been well cleaned, split them lengthwise through their backs; cut off the feet and slip the legs under the skin; beat, pare carefully, season with salt and pepper and dip them in melted butter and broil over a slow fire; serve when done either on a Colbert sauce (No. 451) or a hunter's sauce (No. 480) or else a tartar sauce (No. 631).

← No. 2098 Partridges Braised a la Moliere Partridge, Pheasant & Grouse No. 2100 Partridges Truffled and Roasted →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a cook who already knows how to break down a bird and has a numbered sauce book at hand. The method is sound; only the vocabulary and the fire need translating.

The hinge: even thickness"Beat" means to flatten the split bird gently with the side of a cleaver or a mallet so breast and thigh finish together. Skip it and the legs will still be raw when the breast has dried out.
Split through the backThis is spatchcocking. Shears through either side of the backbone are faster than a knife; "pare carefully" means tidying the bird up — trimming off ragged skin and any protruding bone splinters.
Legs under the skinAfter the feet come off, the drumstick ends are tucked through a slit in the belly skin. It is a presentation trick that also keeps the legs from splaying and burning.
A slow fireOn a charcoal grill, coals banked to one side and the bird over indirect, gentle heat rather than a searing bed. Under a domestic broiler, set the rack in the middle of the oven rather than directly beneath the element.
DonenessPartridge is lean and unforgiving. Cooks aiming for a juicy bird pull it at around 155-160F in the thickest part of the breast and rest it five minutes, with the thigh reading a little higher; food-safety guidance for poultry is 165F. Cooked well past that it turns to sawdust.
Colbert sauceClassically a meat glaze slackened with butter, lemon juice and chopped parsley or tarragon, sometimes with a little Madeira. Hunter's sauce is the familiar chasseur, with mushrooms, shallots and white wine in a brown sauce.
The birds themselvesGrey and red-legged partridge are farmed and sold dressed in Europe; in the United States chukar is the usual stand-in. A dressed bird runs roughly 8-14 oz depending on species, so one per person.
Butter and smokeMelted butter browns and can catch over live fire. Clarified butter, or butter cut with a neutral oil, gives the same coating without the burnt milk solids.

A Little History

The Epicurean was Charles Ranhofer's 1894 summary of some thirty years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and its game chapters read like a catalogue of what a wealthy American table expected in season: partridge braised, truffled, roasted, and here simply split and grilled. The interchangeable sauces are the tell. Ranhofer built the book as a system of cross-references, so a broiled bird is really a platform onto which any of several hundred numbered sauces can be dropped, and the cook is expected to flip back rather than be told twice. Sauce Colbert is generally traced to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's finance minister, though the attribution is honorific rather than documented, a French kitchen naming convention, like Soubise or Bechamel. Grilling was the plainest treatment a game bird could receive at Delmonico's.