FoodNetArchive

The thorough good cook

1895

Page 157 · 2 recipe records on this page

Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Then put in, little by little, the liquor in which the grouse was cooked : keep stirring while on the fire, and when it has boiled for a few miiiutes strain it off' into another pan. Season it by putting in a little cayenneGrouse Braised with Cabbage and lemon-juice. Dish your grouse with the cabbage round it, and the sauce poured over all. The French garnish this braise of grouse with carrots : but I prescribe only cabbage. If you do not see your way to dressing grouse in this fashion, keep this recipe for the time when partridge shoot- ing begins. Partridge Avith cabbage is a perfectly lovely dish POULTRY, GAME, ETC. 279 (see No. 59) ; but please not to run away with the notion, inculcated by some heterodox cook, that an old and tough bird is good enough for braising. Your partridge should be as young and tender as "Little Billie" in Thackeray's ballad. I cannot pass on without remarking that although " the wav of an easrle in the air " was amonsf the four thinc^s which the Wise Man owned were too wonderful for him, yet Solomon, had he studied grouse, might have been fain to admit that the ways of this bird were even more wonderful, in the sense of being mysterious, than those of the eagle. The very etymology of " grouse " is doubtful,, although the learned Wedgwood thinks it is derived from the English " grice," a moor-fowl. But then a grice means also a little pig just one year old, and a grouse has certainly nothing porcine about it. The French have no term for a grouse more specific than " cock of the heath," and the Italians call the bird " mountain cock." The well-known moor-fowl or red grouse of Britain is now often classed by naturalists with the ptarmigan, apart from the members of the genus tetrao, or true grouse ; although it is a species to which the name is exclusively applied b}' British sports- men, who are superbly ignorant of the fact that the tetrao genus includes the capercailzie, the black cock, and the prairie-hen of the Rocky Mountains. In America I have often met with the ruffed grouse, which was known sometimes as a partridge and sometimes as a pheasant. On the whole, it is perhaps quite sufficient to know that the grouse is one of the most delicious of edible birds, and that grouse- shooting begins on the 12th of August. 71. Salmi of Woodcock. Tlie same operation is required as for the salmi of par- tridges (No. 57). Instead of boiling the trimmings in the 280 THE THOROUGH GOOD COOK. sauce, take off the members, and pound the remainder, to- gether with the trimmings, in a mortar until you are able to strain it through a tamm}''. When you have skimmed the fat from the sauce and given a good seasoning, moisten the pounded meat with it ; then strain it through a tammy, and put it over the legs in a metal bath. The salmi must be made hot, but without boiling. Serve up with slices of frfed bread cut into hearts and glazed. 72. WoodcocksSalmi of Woodcock and Snipe. Woodcocks, like snipes, are only good when they are fat. The most favourite parts are the legs and the intes- tines. The fillets of woodcocks, for those persons who do not like their meat underdone, are tough and without savour. They are held in high estimation Avhen roasted, or en salmi. A puree of woodcock is also served occasionally. Although woodcocks and snipes are cooked in but very few ways, they may be dressed in as many modes as 3'oung partridges.