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Bread Canapes for Small Birds
Cut out from a stale loaf of sandwich bread six slices one and a half inches thick, trim neatly round the corners of each slice, making pieces two inches long by one and a half wide, then scoop out with a keen knife an oval piece (bed-like) lengthwise from end to end, so as to have the birds lay firmly on them. Plunge them in boiling fat and let get a golden colour. Remove, thoroughly drain and use as directed.
This is a component recipe — fried bread platforms (croûtes) meant to be sent to table under roast quail, snipe or squab and to catch their juices. It is simple, but a few details decide whether the result is crisp or greasy.
- The bread matters"Sandwich bread" here means a close-crumbed white pan loaf, not an open, airy artisan bread. Day-old is the point: fresh crumb collapses and drinks fat, while properly stale bread holds its shape and fries dry.
- Fat temperature is the hingeThe book says only 'boiling fat', but it needs to be hot enough to colour the bread quickly, in the region of 350-375F. Cooler and the croutes absorb oil before they colour; hotter and the outside browns while the interior stays soft. A cube of the trimmed bread browning in well under a minute is a reasonable gauge if you have no thermometer.
- Scooping the bedCut the oval depression before frying, not after — fried bread shatters under a knife. Leave a good half inch of bread at the base of the hollow so the croûte does not break when it takes the weight of a bird and its juices.
- DrainingDrain standing on a rack rather than lying on paper. Flat on paper, the underside steams and goes limp within a minute or two.
- YieldSix croûtes, one per small bird. Sized as written they are roughly 2 by 1½ inches, which suits quail, snipe or a boned squab; a partridge or Cornish hen wants a proportionately larger cut.
- TimingFry these no more than an hour ahead and hold them uncovered in a warm oven around 200°F. Covered or refrigerated, they soften; reheating in a hot oven restores some crispness but not all.
- On the birds themselvesSmall wild game birds are regulated in many countries and often cannot be bought or taken freely. Farmed quail and squab are sold at good butchers.
Frying or toasting a slab of bread to sit beneath roasting small birds is long established in European game cookery, and it began as a practical device rather than a garnish: birds like snipe and woodcock were traditionally roasted undrawn, and the trail dripped onto the bread below, which was then eaten as the best part of the dish. By the time this book was compiled, the croute served as much as a neat, level platform that kept a small carcass from sliding across the plate and soaked up the pan juices. The hollowed "bed" is familiar from the professional French kitchen, where similar shapes appear under other small roasts and entrees, and the instruction to "use as directed" suggests this page was written as a cross-reference, to be sent for from other recipes elsewhere in the book.