Snipe and Woodcock Roasted
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the birds
Pluck the birds and remove the skin from the heads and necks.
Truss the birds with the heads under the wings and twist the legs at the first joint.
Do not draw the birds.
Wrap a thin slice of bacon around each bird.
Run a small iron skewer through the birds and tie it to a spit at both ends.
Roast and serve
Roast the birds over a good fire, placing a dripping pan with buttered toast underneath to catch the drippings.
Baste the snipe often with a brush dipped in melted butter.
Roast for twenty minutes, then salt the birds and serve immediately on the toast.
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.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Snipe or woodcock
- Provides the lean main meat that is roasted whole and served as the centrepiece.
- Thin slices of bacon
- Wrapped around the birds to add fat that bastes the lean meat and adds savoury flavour.
- Butter
- Brushed on the birds and dripped onto the toast, adding richness and promoting gentle browning.
- Slices of toast
- Set under the birds to catch the drippings, soaking up fat and flavour as the base for serving.
The step that matters
Roasting over a good fire with frequent basting. Small birds dry out quickly over strong heat. Regular basting with butter keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly, while the bacon wrap adds fat for juiciness.
“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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