Snipe with maderia sauce
If you find yourself with several snipe (at least 2 per person), by all means sharpen your knife and break them down into parts. This recipe is for snipe breasts, but the sauce would be lovely with any upland game bird: grouse, partridge, pheasant and especially woodcock. Speaking of the sauce, it my adaptation of several 19th Century sauces I’ve seen served with snipe or woodcock; yes, I have those kind of books. The livers of the snipe really make this sauce, so if you threw them out by mistake, use a chicken liver. Be sure to start the celery root puree that goes with this well before you get to the sauce or snipe, which come together very quickly. Serves 2.
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 60 minutes[/preptime]
- 4 snipe
- The livers from the snipe (or one chicken liver)
- 1 small or 1/2 large celery root
- 1 lemon, quartered
- 3/4 cup heavy cream
- 4 tablespoons butter
- Kosher salt
- 1/4 cup Madeira wine
- 1 cup snipe stock (or duck stock or vegetable stock)
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley
- 1 teaspoon celery seeds
- Fleur de sel or smoked salt
- Squeeze the lemon into a large bowl of ice-cold water. Peel the celery root and cut it into 2-inch pieces, dropping them into the lemon-water as you go.
- Bring another pot of water to a boil. Add a palmful of salt, or enough to make the water taste like the sea. Simmer the celery root until it is tender, which can take between 30 minutes and an hour. It’s done when it is easily pierced by a toothpick or skewer.
- Drain and return the pot to the stove over low heat. Return the celery root to the pot and shake a few times. You want the celery root to steam off a bit.
- Add 1/2 cup cream, a pinch of salt and half the butter. Mix well and mash with a potato masher or puree with an immersion blender. Push this through a food mill set on a coarse setting. If you don’t have a food mill, buy one. But for now, push the mashed celery root through a colander. You want a smooth puree without it becoming gummy.
- Test for salt and set aside, covered, to stay warm.
- Mash the liver with the rest of the cream; I’d put it in a small food processor. You want it to look like Strawberry Quik. (Look it up.)
- Heat a large saute pan until hot, then add the rest of the butter. Let this froth off and reduce heat to medium. Lightly salt the snipe breasts and saute them, skin side down first.
- Let this cook for 2-3 minutes, then flip. Cook for 60-90 seconds and remove. Cover with foil and set aside, skin side up.
- Raise the heat to high and deglaze the pan with the Madeira, then let this boil down by half. Add the stock and do the same thing.
- Turn the heat down and add the cream-liver mixture. DO NOT LET THIS BOIL. Heat through and mix well, then strain through a fine-mesh sieve.
- To serve, plate some celery root puree and top with the parsley. Lay some sauce down and top with the snipe breasts, skin side up. Place a few grains of smoked salt or fleur de sel, then a few celery root seeds on top of the snipe. Serve at once.
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