No. 2198

Woodcocks a la Cavour

Becasses a la Cavour

Cut six woodcocks in four each and withdraw the intestines, discarding the pouch and gizzard. Fry the quartered birds in butter with some truffles, mushrooms and escaloped sweetbreads; moisten with a little white wine and season with salt, pepper and finely cut-up chives. Fry also the intestines in butter, with the parings, some minced ham, carrots and onions, mushroom parings, all well chopped, thyme and bay leaf; wet with a little white wine when cooked, press through a tammy and add this pulp to the woodcocks; moisten once more with white wine and a little brown sauce (No. 414), despumate well and reduce to a proper degree; dress the meat in a border made of risot (No. 739) and pour the sauce over.

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For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer assumes a brigade, a stocked larder and a cook who already knows what the numbered cross-references contain. The dish is really two preparations run in parallel: the quartered birds sautéed with a garnish, and a sauce built on the birds' own trail.

The hinge: the trailWoodcock is drawn only of its "pouch" (stomach) and gizzard; the intestines are deliberately kept and fried separately to build the sauce. Press the pulp through while still warm — it passes the tammy far more easily than when cold.
Sourcing the birdsIn the United States woodcock is a migratory game bird that cannot legally be bought or sold, so this is a recipe for hunters or for those cooking in countries where wild woodcock is marketed in season. Quail or squab substitute reasonably for the sauté, though neither gives the trail sauce; chicken livers are sometimes used in its place.
Six birds, and what that feedsWoodcock are small — an American bird runs roughly 5 to 8 oz whole, a European one heavier. Six birds quartered, with truffles, mushrooms and sweetbreads, would serve about six as a course rather than as a main plate of meat; the recipe itself gives no yield.
Sweetbreads first"Escaloped sweetbreads" means sweetbreads already soaked, blanched, pressed and sliced before they reach the pan; the recipe assumes that preliminary work is done. Raw sweetbreads dropped in whole will not cook through in the time the birds need.
TimingThe recipe gives no timing. Quartered woodcock needs only a few minutes in hot butter and is traditionally served still rosy; left in the sauce while it reduces it dries out, so reduce the sauce first and return the meat to warm through.
Tammy, despumateA tammy is a fine worsted straining cloth — a chinois or a fine sieve with a ladle does the same work. To despumate is to hold the sauce at a bare simmer and skim the scum and fat from the surface as it reduces.
The cross-referencesNo. 414 is Ranhofer's brown sauce, his Spanish sauce or espagnole; a good reduced demi-glace serves. No. 739 is his risot, here formed into a border for the meat to sit inside; how the border is shaped is left to the cook.
Wine and seasoningThe birds are moistened with wine three times and it is never quantified (twice as "a little white wine", once simply as white wine). Treat it as a deglazing quantity rather than a braising one; too much will thin the sauce past the point where reduction can save it.

A Little History

Garnishes and dishes labelled à la Cavour honour Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, the Piedmontese statesman behind Italian unification, and they commonly signal his region: a base of risotto or polenta and truffles. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, collected the formula into The Epicurean (1894) among a run of quail, snipe, woodcock and small-bird preparations — the facing page carries another, Woodcocks à la Dumas — a measure of how routinely wild birds moved through a nineteenth-century American restaurant kitchen before the Lacey Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act ended the commercial game trade. The insistence on cooking and sieving the intestines follows established European practice with woodcock and snipe, birds whose gut was traditionally held to be clean enough for the trail to be treated as a prized ingredient rather than waste.