Roast Partridge with Clove-Scented Bread Sauce, Game Chips and Blistered Grapes

⏱ 85 min · Serves 4

The whole autumn shoot on one plate: plump partridge roasted pink-breasted and rested in butter, a silky clove-and-bay bread sauce, shatteringly crisp game chips and roast grapes that burst sweet-sharp against the game. It looks like a country-house dining room and it's all doable in under an hour and a half.

Per serving: 742 kcal · 52.0g protein · 41.0g carbs · 40.0g fat

Ingredients

• 4 oven-ready grey-leg partridge
• 4 rashers streaky bacon or thin pancetta
• 40g butter, softened, plus 30g for basting
• 4 sprigs thyme
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• Sea salt and black pepper
• 300ml whole milk
• 1 small onion, peeled and halved
• 6 cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• Blade of mace or a good grating of nutmeg
• 80g stale white bread, crusts removed, torn
• 25g butter (for the sauce)
• 2 tbsp double cream
• 2 large Maris Piper potatoes (about 400g)
• 1 litre sunflower oil, for frying
• 300g seedless red grapes, on the vine if possible
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp sherry vinegar
• 150ml chicken or game stock
• 75ml red wine or ruby port
• 1 tsp redcurrant jelly

Method

1. Start the bread sauce: stud the onion halves with the cloves and put in a pan with the milk, bay and mace. Bring just to a simmer, then take off the heat and leave to infuse for 30 minutes.
2. Peel the potatoes and slice wafer-thin on a mandoline. Rinse in cold water until it runs clear, then dry thoroughly on tea towels — this is the secret to crisp game chips.
3. Heat the frying oil to 160C. Fry the potato slices in small batches for 3-4 minutes until pale gold and crisp, lifting and draining onto kitchen paper. Salt while hot. Keep somewhere warm and dry.
4. Heat the oven to 220C/200C fan. Rub the partridge with softened butter, season generously inside and out, tuck a thyme sprig into each cavity and drape a rasher of bacon over each breast.
5. Heat the vegetable oil in an ovenproof frying pan and brown the birds all over, 3-4 minutes. Sit them breast-up, add the 30g butter and roast for 12-14 minutes, basting once, until the breast is just blushing. Rest breast-down, loosely covered, for 10 minutes.
6. Toss the grapes with olive oil and a pinch of salt on a small tray and roast for 10-12 minutes alongside the birds, until blistered and just splitting. Splash with the sherry vinegar.
7. Finish the bread sauce: strain the milk, discard the aromatics, return to the pan with the torn bread and warm gently, whisking to a thick, spoonable sauce. Beat in the 25g butter and the cream, season with salt, pepper and plenty of nutmeg.
8. Make the gravy: pour off excess fat from the roasting pan, add the wine and bubble to a syrup, then the stock and redcurrant jelly. Simmer to a light coating consistency, add any resting juices and strain.
9. Plate each partridge with a spoonful of bread sauce, a bunch of roast grapes, a generous tangle of game chips and the gravy poured around. Serve at once, while the chips still crackle.