Feathered Game

The feathered game I have cooked and eaten recently are black duck, Canada goose, grouse, partridge, pheasant, quail, and woodcock. All of them are better with five to eight days aging, quail being the exception—it should be cooked “just off the end of the gun.” While chickens get every treatment in the book from crayfish butter (Jean Cocteau), to being stuffed with foie gras and sauced with black truffles (Antonin Carême), or with foie gras and cooked in cream (the Aga Khan), game birds benefit most from very simple cooking. One perfect recipe, called Palombes en Béatitude, or Blissful Doves, is given in Fernand Point’s Ma Gastronomie: stuff some doves with diced truffles, foie gras, and pistachios. Roast the birds in the oven, serve them with the pan juices reduced with red wine, and garnish with tiny puff pastry containers filled with currant jelly. That is the spirit and form of a perfect game-bird recipe.