Partridges with Cabbage

Almost above all other game birds I love partridges. I like watching them alive, and I love to eat them‘plump as bishops’, as Browning says. Ian MacCall of the Scottish Game Conservancy tells me partridges are on the increase due to the simple expedient of leaving the margins of fields unsprayed. When you tell people you are going to cook this dish they look askance as if the cabbage will spoil the birds, but I find it excellent and a good way of dealing with older birds.