1829—Faisan à la Mode d’Alcantara

This recipe comes from the famous Alcantara convent. History tells us that at the beginning of the Portuguese campaign in 1807 the convent’s library was pillaged by Junot’s soldiers, and its precious manuscripts were used in the making of cartridges.

Now it happened that an officer of the commissariat who was witnessing the event found, among a collection of recipes selected by the monks, the particular one now under our notice, which was applied only to partridges.

It struck him as interesting, and after trying it when he returned to France in the following year, he surrendered it to the Duchess of Abrantès, who noted it in her memoirs.

It represents, perhaps, the only good thing the French derived from that unfortunate campaign, and it would tend to prove that foie gras and truffles, which had been known for so long in Languedoc and Gascony, were also known in Estremadura, where, even at the present day, tolerably good truffles are to be found.

The procedure is as follows:—

Empty the pheasant from the front; bone its breast, and stuff it with fine ducks’ foies gras, mixed with quartered truffles, cooked in port wine.

No. 168, Cooked Marinade for Venison the pheasant for three days in port wine, taking care that it be well covered therewith. This done, cook it “No. 250, Poëlings” (the original recipe says on the spit, but the saucepan is more suitable). Reduce the port wine of the No. 168, Cooked Marinade for Venison; add to it a dozen medium-sized truffles; set the pheasant on these truffles, and heat for a further ten minutes.

N.B.—This last part of the recipe may be advantageously replaced by the “à la Souvaroff” treatment—that is to say, having placed the pheasant and the truffles in a terrine, sprinkle them with the reduced port combined with slightly buttered game glaze; then hermetically seal down the lid of the terrine, and complete the cooking in the oven.