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Snipe and Woodcock

Roasted snipe and woodcock wrapped in pork or bacon, served on toast with a liver and heart paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 3 ingredients
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Snipe and Woodcock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Draw the birds carefully.

  2. Wipe inside and out with a wet cloth, but do not wash more than this, as it takes away their flavor.

  3. Cut off the feet.

  4. Skin the lower legs after holding them a minute in scalding water.

  5. Skin the head.

  6. Take out the eyes.

  7. Press the bird well together.

  8. Draw around the head.

  9. Run the bill like a skewer through the legs and body.

Roast

  1. Wrap each bird in a thin slice of pork or bacon.

  2. Bake the wrapped birds in a hot oven for ten minutes.

  3. Baste the birds with butter.

Make the paste and serve

  1. Chop or pound the hearts and livers to a paste.

  2. Season the paste with salt, pepper, onion juice, and butter.

  3. Spread the paste on slices of toast just large enough to hold one bird.

  4. Place the croustades in the oven to become very hot.

  5. Pour over the croustades the juice from the dripping-pan holding the birds.

  6. Place the birds on the toast.

  7. Serve at once.

  8. Garnish the dish with water-cress.

By Mary Ronald. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Birds
Provide the main meat, which cooks through quickly under high heat.
Pork or bacon (in the method)
Wraps the birds, adding fat that bastes the lean meat and adds savoury flavour.
Butter (in the method)
Adds fat and richness, helping the birds brown and the paste taste rounded.

The step that matters

Wipe the birds without washing them. Water rinsing washes away flavour compounds and surface juices, so the birds should only be wiped with a damp cloth before cooking.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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