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10/31/09 - Something To Grouse About

Autumn is the time for game birds. For those of us who cannot be trusted with firearms, that means D'Artagnan, the specialty food provider founded by Arianne Daugin, the daughter of one of France's great chefs. This recipe calls for four grouses, or perhaps four grice, if that is what are available at your market. It also calls for a head or two of savoy cabbage, twelve rashers of the best, smokey bacon you can get, a tart apple, at half a stick of butter, dried thyme and/or marjoram, pepper and salt.

Grouses, or perhaps grice

Shredded savoy cabbage
 Clean the grouses, or grice. Save any good insaginnies. Clean the cabbage and save eight of the largest leaves for wrapping the grouses. Shred the rest of the cabbage using the slicing blade of a food processor. Cut up four rashers of bacon into 1/2" bits. Toss the shredded cabbage and bacon with a teaspoon or two of thyme, marjoram or both, and some salt and pepper. If there were any hearts or crops, chop them up and toss them in as well.

Cut up the apple into eight pieces. Put a piece of apple, a chunk of butter and as much of the cabbage mix as you can into each grouse. Put the remaining cabbage mix into a flat roasting pan. Put each grouse, breast side up, on a cabbage leaf. Drape two rashers of bacon over it and cover it with another cabbage leaf.

All ready to bake, except for the top cabbage leaves

Grice, or perhaps grouses, in the cabbage patch
Add perhaps a quarter inch of water to the baking pan and bake for about 45 minutes at 325F. Check the birds. They should be cooked through and getting tender. We raised the temperature to 350F at this point and gave them another 15 minutes. A lot depends on your oven.

When the birds are basically cooked, remove the upper cabbage leaves. Slide the bacon down to the sides of each bird so it doesn't burn. Raise the oven temperature to 450F and give the grice another 10 or 15 minutes. This should brown the birds nicely. They can be served straight from the oven along with the cabbage.

Ready to eat

Keywords: autumn, birds, grouse, recipe