“the month ’tis now september; the season has begun when english customs give us game, when dinner’s almost done.” now for my own part i think we often rather waste our game in this country, by bringing it in when really everybody has dined; or if some one has what may be called reserved himself, he probably finds he gets such an exceedingly small portion that he runs considerable risk of going home hungry.
i recollect an old story of a notorious gourmand, who was asked to dine with a so-called friend, who played upon him the following cruel practical joke—a little soup and fish was followed by a plain leg of mutton, and the gourmand was informed that he saw his dinner before him. he accordingly gorged freely, while his host scarcely tasted a mouthful. the leg of mutton was, however, followed by a splendid haunch of venison.
“it was cruel not to tell me,” said the guest, with tears of anguish rolling down his cheeks.
the story does not sound like a true one, and we trust for the sake of human nature it is not; but it 161exemplifies our point in saying, or rather asking, is it not a mistake when game is cheap and plentiful, to leave it quite to the last?
i must say i admire the good, honest english hospitality of the north. it may be called the black country, but as long as black is associated with blackcock and grouse, long may it remain so.
nowhere do you get grouse in such perfection as in the neighbourhood of the moors. they have not yet arrived at that depraved state of appetite in which it is considered the right thing to send game to table nearly putrid; nor, as a rule, do you get one, or at the outside two, mouthfuls put on your plate by an elegant waiter. elegant waiters are all very well in their way, but we prefer grouse.
now game, whether grouse, partridge, pheasant, or woodcock, requires careful cooking, and, above all things, good gravy.
by good gravy we mean that which will assist, and not counteract or destroy, the flavour of the game. weak beef-tea or rich turtle soup would be alike wrong; and it will, we fear, be too often found that cooks fail very much in adapting the gravy to the occasion. roast goose with sage-and-onion stuffing would bear a gravy which, so to speak, would kill the delicate flavour of a partridge.
game served as a salmi, which nine times out of 162ten means game cooked before and warmed up, requires quite a differently-flavoured sauce to game proper—i.e., game, not too fresh, and at the same time not at all high, roasted to a turn and served quickly.
in cooking game i fear we cannot learn much from that nation of cooks, the french. i am such an admirer of french cooking as a rule, that i wish to speak with the greatest diffidence, but did you ever taste any game, never mind of what kind, at any foreign hotel or restaurant abroad, to compare with the game we get at home?
i say hotel or restaurant, as i have had no experience of french country private houses.
whether this is owing to the game itself being of inferior quality or flavour—as is undoubtedly the case with red-legged partridges, when compared with the ordinary english ones—or to other causes, i cannot say, but simply record the fact.
there is no doubt that a large class of men enjoy their food when game is in season more than at any other time.
the class to whom we refer are those who live for the greater part of the year in london, and as a rule never move a mile except in a hansom; to such the 12th of august is the commencement of what may be termed their annual training, the exercise they take 163during the next three months probably saving them from the inevitable gout and dyspepsia which would necessarily follow a town life such as theirs without such intervals.
what a change! first the early rising—and there are thousands whom nothing but hunting or shooting will persuade to get up early—the substantial breakfast, the glass of bitter, the gun examination, the struggle into the heavy greased shooting-boots, and then the tramp through the heather. what with the exercise and the bracing air of the moors, lunch is approached with feelings which by contrast approximate to what we should imagine the alderman’s would have been, had he carried out the famous doctor’s recipe—viz., to live on a shilling a day, and earn it.
let us hope the hungry sportsmen may not meet with the disappointment that occurred to a shooting party on the moors, that we referred to before. the first brace of grouse shot were sent to a neighbouring farm to be cooked for lunch. the farmer’s wife, however, had them boiled, and stuffed with sage and onions.
there are various ways of cooking grouse, but only one which we consider to be worthy of consideration, and that is what we term grouse au naturel, or in other words plain roast, with good gravy and fried bread-crumbs, or bread sauce.
164to overpower the delicious flavour of a good grouse with strong sauces seems to us as cruel a waste as to mull good 1848 la fitte claret, and mix in cinnamon and sugar.
as an instance, however, of what cooks may come to, we will mention an italian method of spoiling grouse—the ingredients for this extraordinary dish comprising mace, garlic, brandy, macaroni, tomato sauce, and parmesan cheese. imagine what a dish this italian cook and our farmer’s wife could manufacture between them!
the first point to be considered with regard to game is, how long should it be kept?
when game is bought, it is of course impossible to say how long it has been killed, except from appearances. as a rule, the first symptom of discolouring, or the faintest smell of being high, shows that the birds are ripe for cooking. we would, however, allow a pheasant a longer time than either a partridge or a grouse. a thoroughly fresh pheasant is more tough than a fowl.
game, in fact, should be treated exactly like a good haunch of mutton. no one would keep a haunch till it is high, but yet every one knows that the longer it is kept the more tender it becomes. in a large number of london shops the game for sale has already been kept too long, reminding one of the 165story of the man who arrived home after a days’ shooting, who had, however, been driven to buy a brace for appearances, the look of which called forth the remark from his wife—
“well, my dear, it is time they were shot, for they are getting very high.”
the next point to be considered is the actual cooking. we will suppose the birds ready trussed. they should be wiped inside, but never washed.
all game requires a brisk fire, and plenty of basting. it is the custom among french cooks to fasten a thin slice of bacon over the breast, in order to prevent the bird being too dry. indeed, they go so far as to send the bird to table with the bacon still on. in my opinion, this spoils the flavour of the bird altogether, giving it what may be termed a greasy taste. if bacon is fastened on at all, it should be taken off before the bird is taken down; the breast should then be basted with a little butter, and frothed and browned before it is sent up.
with regard to the time that it takes to cook game, it is difficult to lay down any general rule. the time of course varies with the size of the birds. young, small partridges want about twenty-five minutes; good-sized partridges as much as thirty-five minutes; small grouse will take a little over half an hour, and good-sized ones require three-quarters; pheasants 166require from thirty-five minutes to an hour; or even more, according to the size.
the principal thing, however, for the cook to bear in mind is to adapt the time to the period of dinner when the game will be required. herein lies the great secret of game being badly cooked. have you not often at a large dinner-party had game completely dried up, the outside skin being quite hard? the reason of this is that the game was ready for table about the period you were finishing your soup. the fact is, cooks, especially young and inexperienced, get nervous about time, forgetting that it is quite as bad to have things dried up as to have them underdone. it would be a good plan were the housekeeper to give the following directions to the cook:—do not begin to cook the game until you send up the soup. suppose the dinner to consist of soup, fish, entrées, and joint, followed by game, there is ample time to cook grouse, or even a small pheasant, by putting them down as soon as the soup is served. in any case tell the cook never to put down game until they know that dinner may be served. the late arrival of some important guest should never be the excuse of overcooked game. it would be far better to have a slight pause in the middle of the dinner than to have things spoilt. besides, a pause after soup, fish, entrées, and joint is never objectionable.
167another important point is the basting. game should be basted directly it is put down. ordinary dripping is quite good enough to commence with, but it will be found an improvement if during the last five minutes a little butter is used instead. baste quickly with a little butter, and froth it at the same time, shaking a little fine dried flour over the breast out of a flour-dredger. when this is done, let the game be sent up immediately. treat it, in fact, like a soufflé, which everybody knows, or ought to know, requires a running-man for a waiter to be served properly.
in making bread sauce, it will be generally found that cooks make it a long time before dinner—in fact, putting in the bread-crumbs, so to speak, to soak in a saucepan, with an onion, in a little milk. the result often is that the milk all dries up, and the sauce gets burnt; a fresh lot has to be made in a hurry, and a sort of bread poultice is sent to table. there is, however, a good deal of difference between bread sauce and a bread poultice. the way to make the former is as follows:—have ready some dry bread-crumbs, put these in some milk, or, still better, cream, and boil them, with an onion and a few peppercorns, for about ten minutes; take out the onion, add a pinch of salt, and a little butter, keep stirring till the butter is dissolved and well mixed in; add, if you like, a suspicion of nutmeg, and the sauce 168is finished. take care in taking out the onion that it does not break, as it is extremely disagreeable to have a piece of onion left in the sauce; it is apt to get into the mouth by mistake, and give notice of its presence by a crunch which is not at all pleasant.
with regard to gravy for game, what is required is that it should be good and strong, yet without any predominant flavour. for instance, some cooks like to add mushroom ketchup to gravy. this, when the gravy is intended for roast goose or fowl, would be unobjectionable, but should certainly be avoided when the gravy is intended for game. again, the flavour of garlic should be guarded against. there is an old proverb which says, “it is a pity to spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar.” so, too, it is a pity to spoil a brace of grouse for the sake of a little gravy-beef, and recollect a little and good is better than plenty and poor. equal quantities of good gravy-beef and knuckle of veal should be used; of course, less gravy-beef is necessary when extract of meat is used. the gravy may be thickened with a little brown thickening, but not too much. a very little arrowroot may be used, but the gravy for game should be by no means thick, yet at the same time it should look of a rich dark colour.
to make a salmi of game. it is almost always the case that the game has been previously cooked. take, 169therefore, any game-bones or trimmings that can be got, and place them, with a bay-leaf, to stew as long as possible in some gravy similar to what we have described, which is simply good strong stock made from gravy-beef, knuckle of veal stewed with an onion in which a few cloves have been stuck, a head of celery, a carrot and turnip, and a large handful of parsley, flavoured with pepper and salt, &c. after stewing all the game-bones, you can strain off the gravy from them and the bay-leaf; make the gravy a trifle thicker with a little more brown thickening; make this gravy hot in a stew-pan and then add the remains of the game, cut off as neatly as possible; let it soak in the gravy, but do not let it boil; about a quarter of an hour before serving, add a wine-glassful of madeira, or good golden sherry. a pale dry sherry is not nearly so good for the purpose. it is really the addition of the wine that makes the gravy into the salmi sauce—just as in nearly all the french restaurants in london it will often be seen in the bill of fare, something with sauce madère, which simply means some ordinary gravy to which has been added a spoonful of sherry.
to make fried bread-crumbs—the best accompaniment to grouse—a clear fire is necessary. get an enamelled stew-pan, and put a little butter in it (about an ounce), then get some bread-crumbs, stale and not too fine, throw them in the butter, and keep stirring 170till they begin to change colour; as soon as they do, remove the stew-pan from the fire, but keep on stirring; the process of cooking, as we have said before, goes on some time after the stew-pan is removed. as soon as they are sufficiently brown, place them on some blotting-paper, in order that all the grease may be soaked up.
the blotting-paper can be placed in front of the fire, and the bread-crumbs tossed lightly about with a fork. the bread-crumbs can be made hot in the oven when required for use, but should not be allowed to remain in too long, as they are apt to get too hard and crisp, and thereby get converted into toothbreakers.
as we have said before, game, at any rate in this country, is far too good a thing to be left to the last, and then to be brought forward only in mouthfuls. the fact is, we are all of us to a great extent creatures of habit. we, as a rule, do what other people do, without reasoning whether it is right or wrong, good or bad, but simply because we shrink from drawing out a line for ourselves, or because we fear to be thought eccentric. for instance, take an ordinary party of, say, ten persons at dinner at the present season. we cling to soup, fish, entrées, and joint, and follow it up with game, served in the same course with sweets, the latter often being expensive to make, 171and uncared for by the majority. suppose we change our dinner into, first, a little good clear soup; secondly, a good haunch of mutton, well kept and well cooked, and let this be followed by some game in sufficient quantity. when we are by ourselves, we own probably we could manage half a grouse after “a cut off the joint.” why therefore not save the money too often wasted over second-rate entrées and sweets intended more to please the eye than the palate, and spend it in giving a dinner which, if not quite in the fashion, will at any rate please?
were this done, you may be certain of one point, that your house will be considered one at which it is worth while dining.
a glass of pomerey and grem’s champagne, cold, but not frozen, at dinner, followed by a good bottle of claret, say chateau margeaux (which may be placed on a top shelf in the kitchen during the day to bring out its flavour), after dinner, will have the effect of sending home your guests enabled to say from their hearts, or at any rate their stomachs, “i have dined.”
how to cook hare.
once again has that season come round in which earth appears to be most lavish in her gifts to men. in our own country may be seen miles of ground on 172which rich golden grain waves in the autumn sun, waiting for the reaper’s hook, while in the present age, when the iron horse almost annihilates both time and distance, within a few hours’ journey from our shores may be seen that glorious sight where the earth seems reeling with rich purple profusion soon to be converted into the wine that “cheereth god and man.” as often happens, with change of season also comes change of food, a change doubly welcome in a country like our own, which seems to possess fewer changes than others, on the beef and mutton, mutton and beef, day after day and week after week. there are, perhaps, few changes more decided than that of hare in the shape of food, and few dishes that persons would care less to eat every day. still, it is a change, and a pleasant one; but hare requires rather more skill in cooking than many cooks are aware of. hare really properly cooked has simply to be compared with hare carelessly served to prove the truth of this statement.
i will begin by describing that simple dish, roast hare. now what is the common fault to be found with this excellent dish, as we get it in nine houses out of ten? it is nearly always dried up, that part of the meat of the back which in roasting is nearest the fire seems covered with a thick, hard skin, the reason being that it has roasted too long, too fast, and has not 173been sufficiently basted. in cooking hare, and, in fact, in cooking any kind of meat, the nature of that meat should be borne in mind. the specialty about hare is that it has a tendency to taste what we may call dry; and also, it possesses very little natural fat. consequently the cook’s great object should be to keep the hare as moist as possible, and to prevent it from getting dry. in all high-class works on cooking, entrées made from hare are invariably spoken of as larded fillets, which are finished by the addition of various sauces, &c.; but i do not think it would be very practical to describe the process of larding fillets of hare. larding requires practice, and one practical lesson of seeing it done would be worth a volume of bulk—indeed i might as well attempt to explain how to shoot the hare; i fear the cook who depended upon “reading” for her knowledge of larding would miss her mark, as surely as the sportsman whose sole experience consisted of a similar kind would miss his.
there is an old saying, “a disease once known is half-cured;” the disease, so to speak, against which we have to contend is dryness. in roasting a hare, therefore, bear in mind the importance of basting, and also of not letting the hare be too close to the fire in the early stage of roasting. but to begin at the beginning: we will suppose the hare caught and hung up, head downwards, in his fur jacket. now the first 174thing to be thought of is the length of time that a hare should be kept before it is cooked. this entirely depends upon the weather; a perfectly fresh hare should never be cooked unless the whole of it is intended for hare-soup, which is rarely the case save in small private houses. some persons prefer the hare absolutely high; the best course is a happy medium between being too high and too fresh, and cooks should bear in mind that what often appears very high and offensive when raw, becomes perfectly right when cooked.
we will not dwell upon that not very agreeable but still necessary process of skinning the hare, but will at once commence to make the stuffing, which must be tied up inside it. ordinary veal stuffing, as it is generally called, is best for the purpose, and, as i think i have before pointed out, the most common fault is too much lemon.
the following recipe will, i think, be found well adapted to improve, and not destroy or overcome, the flavour of the hare:—take ?lb. of beef suet, and chop it very finely, with 2oz. of raw lean ham; add a tea-spoonful of chopped fresh parsley and 2 tea-spoonfuls of dried mixed savoury herbs, or 1, if these savoury herbs are fresh. these herbs are sold ready mixed, in bottles, which is the simplest method, and are composed principally of marjoram, basil, thyme, &c. as 175the herbs get drier, more must be used, but, as i have said, if quite fresh, 1 tea-spoonful; if very dry, 2; the cook consequently must use her judgment for intermediate stages. add to this, to continue the stuffing, ? of the rind of a lemon (this latter should be chopped very fine); add a little cayenne pepper and salt, about 5oz. of bread-crumbs, and 2 whole eggs. the whole quantity should be well pounded in a mortar.
some persons add the liver of the hare to the stuffing; if the liver is quite fresh this may be done, but not unless; and if the hare has been kept a proper time, the liver is very often the part that exhibits most the—what shall we call it?—ravages of time, and in such case should on no account be used. this stuffing must be placed in the hare, taking care to wipe the inside first, and sewn up; the hare should then be hung up before the fire, at a greater distance than meat would be ordinarily; plenty of dripping should be ready melted in the dripping-pan, and the cook should keep basting as often as possible; this latter is the secret of having the hare moist, and without that hard dry coating outside which we mentioned. as for the time a hare takes to roast, it is almost impossible to say—a small one taking an hour, and a very large one nearly two. much depends, also, on the fire, and the distance the hare is kept from it in the early stages. bear in mind, however, that underdone 176can be remedied, and overdone can’t. an inexperienced cook can cut into the joint at the back, about where the hind-leg joins the body, and look; or stick a little piece of firewood in after the knife, and judge by the colour whether it is done or not. on the average, an hour to an hour and a quarter will be ample. near the finish, however, take away the dripping-pan and get a little butter; baste the hare with this to finish, putting the hare near the fire so as to froth the butter, and at the same time dredge the hare with some flour, so as to get it a nice brown-colour, and serve some good rich, hot gravy with it in a separate tureen. as hare is an awkward joint to carve, it will be found best not to pour gravy over it, for the sake of the table-cloth and the feelings of the carver. red-currant jelly should always be handed round with hare, and the gravy will be much improved by a few cloves, a tiny piece of cinnamon being boiled in it and then strained off; add also half a glass of rich port wine, and by rich i mean not a dry wine, but rather port-wine dregs. the last spoonful of port in the bottle should always be reserved for purposes of this kind.
we will now discuss what is, to my mind, a far preferable method of cooking hare, and that is, jugged hare. for this purpose a stone jar with a wide mouth will be found to be better than an ordinary jug, 177which used to be used, and which gives its name to the dish. have ready some good brown gravy, free from fat. next cut up the hare into joints, each joint not being larger than would be considered the proper quantity for one help; fry these joints in a little butter in a frying-pan, so as to turn them a nice brown without cooking them. have the empty jar made hot by placing it in the oven, and have a cloth ready to tie over its mouth. then as soon as the joints of hare are browned, throw them into the hot empty jar, pour a large glass of port wine in too, and tie the cloth quickly over the mouth of the jar, and let it stand for, say, a quarter of an hour or more, on the dresser. by this means the fumes of the wine will rise—the jar being hot—and will impregnate the meat of the hare in a way in which it would never do were it simply added to the gravy. after this has stood some time, untie the jar and add the gravy, with a small piece of cinnamon, six cloves, two bay-leaves, and the juice of half a lemon. the gravy should be strongly impregnated with onion, and should be thickened with a little arrowroot rather than with brown thickening. the port will materially assist the colour; a good spoonful of red-currant jelly may also be added to it and dissolved in it, though in addition red-currant jelly will be handed round with it. next place this jar up to its neck in a large saucepan of boiling water, only take 178care that the jar is well tied down, or much of the flavour will be lost; allow this to remain in the boiling water for about an hour to an hour and a half, when it will be found to be sufficiently done, as jugged hare, like roast hare, is generally over-cooked rather than under. stuffing-balls should be added to it, but not cooked with it. for this purpose prepare some stuffing as directed for roast hare. roll this stuffing into small balls, a little larger than marbles, and throw them into some boiling fat. a few minutes will be sufficient to cook them; drain them on a cloth and make them hot in the oven before adding them to the jugged hare.
as i before mentioned, hare soup is best made from fresh hare, in which case as much as possible of the blood of the hare should be preserved, and used in the soup. however, it will be often found expedient to use up the remains of the jugged hare by converting it into hare soup for the following day. i will proceed to explain the best method of doing this:—first you must have ready some really good stock; next pick out all the best-looking pieces of meat—little slices from the back are best—and put them by on a plate, to be added to the soup at the last moment; next take all the remains of the hare, add it to the stock with, if possible, a head of celery; let it all boil for an hour or more, till the celery is quite tender, 179strain off the meat, take out carefully all the bones, which will be found after this boiling to be quite white and dry, and then, with a good-sized wooden spoon, rub all the meat and celery through a wire sieve into the stock. this will take time; but recollect, the one secret of good hare soup is the fact of the meat of the hare being rubbed through the sieve helping to make the soup not only thicker, but materially affecting the taste. indeed, i may go farther, and say the excellence of the soup is in proportion to the amount of hare-flesh rubbed through the sieve. should, therefore, the soup look a little thin, allow it to boil away and decrease in quantity. of course, the taste will much depend upon the amount of jugged hare left; but a little port wine may be added at the finish, as the flavour of wine in soups is very apt to go off after they have been boiled for any length of time. a little more lemon-juice may be added near the finish, but avoid putting in too much currant jelly. some persons think hare soup should be absolutely sweet. for my part, i think this a mistake; besides, red-currant jelly can always be added if wished, but cannot be taken out of the soup. the soup should be made slightly thicker by means of brown thickening, which i have before described to be simply butter and flour fried of a rich brown colour. do not, however, use too much of this thickening, as it will be found to 180somewhat destroy the delicate flavour of the hare; besides which, good hare soup should by no means be very thick. it will, however, have one very marked effect, and that is, it will enable you to add some more port wine, or port-wine dregs, which has such an enormous influence over the flavour of hare soup. when the soup is about to be served, throw in the little slices of hare that had been put by on the plate, but do not let the soup boil, as the hare is probably already more than cooked by being jugged. allow, therefore, these pieces of meat to remain in the soup just long enough to get hot, and no longer. one objection brought against jugged hare and hare soup is the quantity of port wine evidently required in order that the result should be worthy of the trouble bestowed. recollect, however, what i have said with regard to port-wine dregs. now there are many homes where port wine is had in the shape of a quarter-cask; where this is the case there should be no difficulty, if the precaution is taken to bottle the thick dregs of the wine and reserve them. port is, however, a wine, i am sorry to say, going out of fashion; still, good, decent, sound burgundy will do nearly as well for cooking, and in the burgundy district in france nothing else is ever used; indeed, so far claret may be used, and considering how nice a sauce bordelaise is, i should imagine would do very well, especially 181as all french cookery-books, in giving directions as to cooking hare, simply say, add red wine. when claret or burgundy is used instead of port, i would recommend the addition of a little, a very little, nutmeg, and also a little extra red-currant jelly, for, bear in mind, port is sweeter than claret.
