How to Cook Partridge Over Fire - The Gentlest Game Bird, and the Best One to Start With

People who want to try game and do not know where to start usually reach for pheasant, because it is the one they have heard of. I would point them at a partridge instead. It is smaller, it is milder, it is more forgiving, and one bird is one portion, which makes the maths easy and the plate look right.

The season runs from the first of September to the first of February, and by late October the birds are plentiful and cheap. A brace from a game dealer costs less than a decent chicken and feeds two. Over a fire, a partridge is a fifteen-minute job.

Grey or Red-Legged

Two species, and you will mostly meet one of them.

• Red-legged partridge: The one on sale almost everywhere. Slightly larger, pale meat, mild flavour, closer to a good chicken than to anything gamey. This is the bird for someone nervous of game
• Grey (English) partridge: Our native bird, rarer, darker and more flavoured. If a dealer offers you greys, take them. They are a conservation success story on the estates that look after them and eating them supports that

Everything below works for both. Greys are smaller, so take a minute or two off.

Preparing the Bird

Buy them plucked and drawn, with the skin on. Check for shot with your fingers. A short brine helps, as with all lean birds: an hour in salted water (50g salt to a litre), then dried thoroughly. Then the only rule that matters with partridge: cover the breast in fat. A partridge has none of its own, and bare over a fire it will dry in minutes. Two rashers of streaky bacon laid over the breast, or a smear of soft butter under the skin, or both.

Whole Bird, Spatchcocked

For a whole partridge on the fire, flatten it. Backbone out with scissors, press it flat, and it cooks evenly in a quarter of the time of a trussed bird.

• Two-zone fire: a bed of embers at one end, a cool zone at the other
• Bacon over the breast, a little oil and salt on the legs
• Skin side up in the cool zone for eight to ten minutes
• Flip it skin side down over the embers for three or four minutes to crisp, lifting the bacon off for the last minute if you want colour on the skin
• Pull at 62C in the thickest part of the breast. It rests to 65C. That is pink, juicy and correct; partridge is not chicken and does not need cooking white
• Rest for five minutes under a cloth

Serve it whole, one per person, with the bacon on top and a knife and fork and no apology.

Breasts Only, Fast

At events, where I need fifty portions off a fire in twenty minutes, I take the breasts off and cook the legs separately. The breasts are a two-minute cook: brushed with oil, salted, over hot embers skin side down for ninety seconds, flipped for sixty, pulled at 60C, rested for three minutes. Sliced on the angle, two or three slices make a starter. The legs go into a pot at the edge of the fire with cider and thyme for an hour and come out as something to pull apart with your fingers.

A partridge breast is the dish I give to people who say they do not like game. Pink, buttery, a bit of smoke, a spoon of something sharp. I have not had one sent back yet.
- Cai

What to Serve With It

Partridge is delicate, so it wants things that are soft and a little sweet rather than big and bold. Celeriac roasted in the embers and mashed with butter. Savoy cabbage wilted in a pan on the fire with bacon. A few grapes or slices of apple warmed in the pan juices. Bread sauce, obviously. A light red, or a good cider.

Where to Buy

Any game dealer from September, most good butchers and farm shops, and increasingly supermarkets in the run-up to Christmas. Ask for red-legged if you are new to game, grey if you are not, and ask for them oven-ready with the skin on. If you want to understand the bird from the field onwards, my wider guide to game birds covers pheasant, pigeon and duck alongside it, and partridge is on the fire at every autumn workshop.