Pheasant à la Sainte-Alliance (Brillat-Savarin's Stuffed Pheasant on Toast)

Ingredients

• 1 pheasant
• 2 woodcock
• poached and cooled beef marrow
• fresh pork fat
• salt
• pepper
• fines herbes
• 200 grammes raw truffles
• butter
• bards of pork fat
• 1 very large crouton cut from a sandwich loaf
• clarified butter
• grated fresh pork fat
• the fillets of 1 anchovy
• 30 grammes butter
• 50 grammes raw truffles
• bitter oranges

Instructions

1. Bone 2 woodcock and set aside the livers and the intestines.
2. Chop the woodcock flesh with a quarter of its weight in poached and cooled beef marrow, as much fresh pork fat, salt, pepper and fines herbes.
3. Add to this hash 200 grammes of raw truffles, peeled, cut into quarters and lightly stewed in butter.
4. Stuff the pheasant with this preparation, truss it, bard it and keep it in a cool place for 24 hours.
5. Roast it on the spit; if roasted in the oven, place it on a rack.
6. Cut a very large crouton from a sandwich loaf and fry it in clarified butter.
7. Pound the woodcock livers and intestines with the same weight of grated fresh pork fat, the well washed fillets of an anchovy, 30 grammes of butter and 50 grammes of raw truffles.
8. When this forcemeat is very fine and homogeneous, spread it on the fried crouton.
9. When the pheasant is two thirds cooked, set the stuffed crouton beneath it so that the juices escaping from the roast fall onto it.
10. Dish the pheasant on the crouton and surround it with slices of bitter orange; send the juice separately.
11. To serve, accompany each piece of pheasant with a slice of orange and a small slice of the stuffed crouton.