No. 2206

Woodcocks Roasted

Becasses Roties

Woodcocks can be roasted with their intestines or else drawn; the gizzard and pouch must always be removed, but the necks left on. Singe the birds, truss by inserting the beaks through the legs (Fig. 409); lard over and lay them on the spit, roast for twelve to sixteen minutes before a bright fire, basting over with butter and laying pieces of bread in the dripping pan, that is if the birds are not drawn; if they are, then cook their intestines separately with melted fat pork and a few good chicken livers, finishing them the same as the woodcocks on canapes a la Perigord (No. 2205). After removing the birds from the spit, salt them over, dress on a dish with the crusts and sliced lemon placed around; serve some gravy separately. The beak may be stuck in the stomach in front so that in case the bird is cut in two the head will be divided equally.

← No. 2205 Woodcocks on Canapes a la Perigord Quail, Snipe, Woodcock & Small Birds No. 2207 Salmis of Woodcocks a la Beaumont →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer assumes a spit before an open fire, a bird that arrives whole with head and feet, and a cook who knows why the trail is left in. The method still works, but almost everything around it has changed.

The hinge: the trailThe whole point of an undrawn woodcock is that the intestines melt into the bread set beneath it in the dripping pan. Only the gizzard and the pouch (crop) come out; if you draw the bird instead, the trail is cooked separately with pork fat and chicken livers and spread on the canapés, as No. 2205 directs.
SourcingIn the United States the American woodcock is a migratory game bird: it may be taken only by licensed hunters in an open season, and it cannot legally be sold. No farmed birds reach the market; captive rearing has been attempted only experimentally and is not commercially viable. In practice this is a recipe for someone who has been given birds by a hunter.
Spit to ovenA "bright fire" here means high, direct radiant heat. The nearest modern equivalents are a rotisserie or a very hot oven, with the toasts on a tray directly under the birds to catch the drippings; the book itself gives no temperature.
Twelve to sixteen minutesThat timing produces a distinctly rare bird, breast meat still red at the bone, which is the way woodcock was customarily served and what the whole preparation is built around. Anyone uneasy about rare wild game — reasonably, since wild birds are not inspected and shot birds may be bruised or gut-shot — should choose a different dish rather than cook this one through, which turns the meat dry and livery.
Larding"Lard over" means threading strips of fatback through the breast with a larding needle, or simply barding: a thin sheet of pork fat or unsmoked bacon tied over the breast. Woodcock has almost no fat of its own and dries out fast under high heat.
Trussing with the beakThe bird's own long bill is pushed through the thighs in place of a skewer. The closing note about sticking the beak into the body in front is a carving convention, so a bird split for two people divides evenly, head and all.
Canapes a la PerigordPerigord in a nineteenth-century menu means truffle. The referenced No. 2205 is presumably a trail-and-liver spread on fried bread with truffle, though that recipe is not reproduced here; plain fried bread soaked in the drippings is the honest version without it.
Yield and serviceOne bird per person; a woodcock is a very small bird, a few ounces of meat once dressed. Serve each on its toast with lemon slices around and the pan gravy passed separately, as written.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its game chapters record a moment when American wild birds still moved freely through the restaurant trade — market gunners supplied woodcock, snipe and plover to city kitchens by the barrel. That trade was closed off by a sequence of state laws and then by federal measures: the Lacey Act of 1900, which barred interstate traffic in game taken in violation of state law, and then the acts of 1913 and 1918, the latter the Migratory Bird Treaty Act — which is why a dish that was once ordinary restaurant fare is now effectively unbuyable. The technique itself is older and European: becasse roasted undrawn, its trail melting onto a crouton set beneath the spit, is a French practice generally traced back well before the nineteenth century and defended on the grounds that the woodcock, which feeds on earthworms in clean ground, empties itself in flight. Whether or not that is literally true, the flavor of the trail on toast is what made the bird the most prized item on a game list, and the reason Ranhofer gives it three recipes in a row.