French Provincial Cooking (100 page)

Our own wild wood-pigeons are rather different birds from the plump and tender little creatures of the
volière
or pigeon-run, which are those intended to be used in the majority of French recipes in which the pigeons or
pigeonneaux
(squabs) are roasted like game-birds or grilled
à la crapaudine
—in other words, spatchcocked. Not all cooks who adapt French recipes to English use quite realise this. Escoffier did, though, and gave us some admirable little pigeon dishes, published in
Le Carnet d’Épicure.
Here is one of them:

 

‘Two or three young pigeons, dressed and drawn but not trussed, are to be lightly browned in butter and transferred to a terrine or other small heavy pot. Into the butter in which the pigeons have browned, pour a little glass of cognac and one of white wine; let this boil a few seconds and pour it over the pigeons. Surround the birds with a few little onions and mushrooms, also previously cooked in butter. Season with salt and pepper, add a few spoonfuls of good veal stock, cover the pigeons with a few little pieces of lean bacon first cooked in butter until the fat has run; seal the pot hermetically and cook in a gentle oven for 50 minutes.’

 

The time, as you see, is for young pigeons. Older and larger ones will take an extra 30 to 40 minutes.

In fact, this excellent method for pigeons is very much that of an
estouffade
or daube of beef, and any of the recipes for those dishes given in the meat chapter can be very successfully adapted to pigeons; red wine instead of white can be used; olives, black or green, make an excellent garnish; a tomato or two can be added to flavour the juice; and, above all, bear in mind that pigeons are dry birds, so that fats and juices are essential to their successful cooking.

For two pigeons, the quantities of other ingredients I use for Escoffier’s dish are 3 to 4 oz. of bacon, 6 small onions, 4 oz. mushrooms, 4 tablespoons of red wine, 2 of brandy or
marc
and 4 of water or stock. The oven temperature should be very moderate—Gas No. 3, 330 deg. F.

It is generally agreed that when young and in good condition, partridge are best presented in their most simple form—plain roasted with their own gravy as a sauce.

Work a little salt and pepper into a good lump of butter; put it inside the bird. Tie a wide, thin strip of larding fat (back pork fat) round the breast. If you can lay hands on some vine leaves, wrap one or two round the partridge. Lay the bird on its side in a small roasting tin. Put it in a preheated oven at a fairly high temperature. Gas No. 7, 420 deg. F., and after 10 minutes turn the bird over; lower the heat to Gas No. 5, 375 deg. F. After the next 10 minutes, turn the bird breast uppermost. Cook another 5 to 15 minutes making 25 to 35 minutes in all, depending upon the weight of the partridge, which may vary from 10 to 14 oz. Each time the oven is opened to turn the bird, pour a little hot melted butter over it; this butter, with any juices which have come from the bird during cooking, is subsequently poured off and served separately as a sauce. The bird is placed on a piece of bread fried golden in butter, and is to be eaten without delay.

It is worth noting that in French cookery it is fresh pork fat and not bacon which is tied round all birds for roasting. Bacon not only tends to curl away from the bird while it is cooking, but it spoils the flavour of the juices which are to be served as a sauce.

‘When the first partridges are shot in the early morning, send them down to the house. As soon as they are received they should be plucked, drawn and trussed, and roasted without delay.

‘Once roasted, carve into joints, put them in a bowl, season them while warm with salt, pepper, vinegar, olive oil and a tablespoon of rum, and take them straight down to the cellar to cool. The gravy from the roasting, in a separate bowl, also goes to cool.

‘At lunchtime, put some lettuce hearts into the bowl, add the gravy, from which every particle of fat has been removed, 2 hard-boiled eggs cut into rounds, and a little more seasoning. This is an exquisite salad; the flesh of the partridges does not taste of rum but merely has a slightly enhanced gamy flavour, and the marinading after roasting has made it as tender as a partridge hung for 2 days.’

Recipe from BENJAMIN RENAUDET’S
Les Secrets de la Bonne Table

Now here is a useful lesson in ingenuity. By some chance you find yourself with two partridges, one a fine young roasting bird, the other, alas, well past its prime. To make the best use of both, try this recipe adapted from Édouard Nignon’s
Les Plaisirs de la Table.

First blanch 2 fine white cabbages in boiling salted water. Drain them, separate the leaves, cut out all hard stalks and the centres, rearrange the leaves to form one whole cabbage and, in the centre of it, lay your old bird, first gently coloured in butter. Close the leaves over the partridge, wrap up the cabbage in 1 or 2 large rashers of bacon, put it in a casserole and surround it with 1 lb. of streaky bacon cut in large chunks. Add a couple of pork sausages of the coarsely cut variety for boiling, to be found in delicatessen shops. Pour over a light meat stock to come half-way up the cabbage. Cover the pan and simmer very gently, preferably in the oven, for 4 hours. Half an hour before serving, remove the casserole from the oven and put it over the gentlest possible heat on top of the stove, turn the oven up and roast your young bird, as described on page 416. When it is ready, transfer the cabbage to a serving dish and remove the bacon wrapping and the old partridge, replacing it with the roasted one. Surround the whole with the sausages cut in slices and the chunks of bacon and serve very hot.

In this way two people may enjoy the one young bird, for half each will be sufficient and the cabbage will also be deliciously flavoured with partridge. Next day or the day after you can eat the old bird in a salad, with hard-boiled eggs, lettuce hearts or celery, and mayonnaise or a vinaigrette dressing.

For four stewing partridges, the other ingredients are 2 oz. of butter, 4 oz. of salt pork or mild streaky bacon, 5 tablespoons of brandy, 8 of white wine, 4 of clear veal or other meat or game stock, a little bouquet of bayleaf, parsley, thyme and a crushed clove of garlic.

If salt pork is being used, steep it for 1 hour in water. Cut it in small cubes. Put it with 1 oz. of the butter in an earthenware or other heavy pan just large enough to hold the four birds. When the fat from the pork or bacon runs, put in the birds, breast downwards. (If they have been trussed for roasting by the poulterer, take out the wooden skewer before cooking them; it only makes the birds more difficult to fit into the pot and is a nuisance when it comes to serving them.) After 2 or 3 minutes pour in the warmed brandy; set light to it. Shake the pan so that the flames spread. When these die down, put in the white wine, warmed if you are cooking in an earthenware pan. Let it bubble a minute; add the stock and the bouquet. Cover the pan with paper or foil and a well-fitting lid. Transfer to a slow oven, Gas No. 3, 330 deg. F., and cook for 1
to 1
hours. Pour off all the liquid into a wide pan, and keep the birds hot in the serving dish. Reduce the liquid by fast boiling to about half its original volume. Off the fire, add the second ounce of butter and shake the pan until the butter has melted and given the sauce a slightly glazed appearance. Pour it over the partridges. Serve at the same time a purée of brown lentils or of celeriac and potatoes.

Young partridges are excellent cooked in the same way, but according to size take only 30 to 40 minutes or so in the oven. If you have no stock use water instead but do not use a bouillon cube. It would falsify the flavour of the birds.

Roast a small young bird, weighing between 14 and 16 oz. when plucked and dressed, for 17 to 20 minutes in a hot oven, Gas No. 7, 420 deg. F. The bird should be cooked on its side rather than breast uppermost, and turned round two or three times, being very liberally basted with butter.

Meanwhile to prepare the
papillotes
fold sheets of greaseproof paper measuring roughly 20 inches by 10 inches in two, so that you have a 10-inch square, and cut these into a rough heart shape, with the point at the open end (see the drawing on page 78). Open them out and butter the inside of the paper copiously. This is essential, as the butter and its own juices will be the only sauce for the pheasant.

Carve the pheasant in half lengthways; lay each piece in the middle of one half of the buttered paper. Season lightly with salt, pepper and a few drops of white wine, Madeira, or concentrated meat or game stock, and pour over all the butter and juices from the roasting pan. Lay a slice of unsmoked bacon over each half-pheasant, fold over the paper, then twist down the edges all round so that no juices can possibly escape. Put the
papillotes
on a baking sheet and let them cook 12 to 15 minutes in a moderate oven, Gas No. 4 or 5, 355 to 380 deg. F.

Serve as they are, so that each person unfolds his own half-pheasant in its buttery juice, and be sure that the plates are very hot.

Melt 1 oz. of butter with 2 oz. of diced streaky salt or fresh pork, in a small, deep
cocotte
or other pan in which the pheasant will just fit; put in the bird; let it take colour on both sides. If you have a little brandy, Calvados or other spirit to spare, pour a small glass of it over the pheasant at this stage. Let it boil fiercely for a few seconds. Cover the pan; simmer gently for 40 to 45 minutes, turning the bird over at half-time. Remove it to the serving dish and, to the juices in the pan, add a claret glass (about 4 oz.) of white wine. Let it bubble and reduce, and when it has thickened slightly, pour into a sauce-boat.

As a vegetable, serve celery cooked as described on page 248.

A young but full-grown pheasant will weigh approximately 1
lb. when drawn and dressed. The times to be reckoned for cooking it are about the same as for a chicken of the same weight.

Cook a tender roasting pheasant in butter in a heavy iron or earthenware
cocotte
on top of the stove, turning it over once or twice so that each side is nicely browned. It will take about 40 to 45 minutes to cook. Carve it, transfer it to the serving dish and keep it warm. Pour off the juices into a shallow pan; let them bubble; pour in a small glass of warmed Calvados (or brandy,
marc
or whisky), set light to it, shake the pan and when the flames have burnt out add a good measure, 8 to 10 oz., of thick cream. Shake the pan, lifting and stirring the cream until it thickens. Season with a very little salt and pepper. Pour the sauce over the pheasant. Serve separately a little dish of diced sweet apple, previously fried golden in butter and kept warm in the oven: 2 apples will be sufficient for one pheasant.