Scotch Woodcock

I had never heard of the Victorian concept of savouries before I tackled this recipe for Gordon Ramsay’s version of something called “Scotch Woodcock”. Scotch what now? I feel a quick history lesson coming on….

The English custom of serving small savouries as part of a meal originated amongst the upper class crowd in the mid 19th century as a way of cleansing the palate before the dessert and port were served as part of a multi-course formal meal. The savoury would often be something very strong in flavour such as salty kippers or anchovies. In fact, it was considered very manly to take the most pungent option available on the menu. So I guess, just as today my brother and I can’t help but to try and outdo each other in the chilli stakes whenever we go out for a curry, Victorian gentlemen would test each other’s steel with salt and preserved fish. “Mr. Dickens, I see your small girly kippers and raise you a whole tin of anchovies, you big sweet-toothed nancy boy.”

I have a feeling scotch woodcock would have been somewhere in the middle of the hard man scale, a Victorian equivalent of a lamb jalfrezi perhaps? The dish is basically anchovy buttered toast, served with scrambled eggs and topped with anchovy fillets, laid in a cross to represent the Scottish flag. The ingredients are pretty simple and something many people will have to hand at home. You can see below the tinned anchovies, bread, butter, eggs, cayenne pepper and capers.

My first job was to make up the anchovy butter. Using the back of a spoon, I softened some butter in a bowl before chopping and mixing in a few of the anchovy fillets along with a generous grind of black pepper. I then beat the mixture until thoroughly combined.

For the scrambled eggs I added hot cayenne pepper to a couple of couple of cracked eggs. In a pan I melted a good sized knob of butter before adding in the eggs. Using a spatula I stirred constantly, removing the pan from the heat once the eggs began to solidify.  I then finished the eggs away from the heat, again stirring constantly until they were cooked but still soft with a rich, creamy texture. To these I added a sprinkling of the salty capers, which had been rinsed previously in cold water.

If you get the timing right, just as the eggs are done, your toast should be popping up out of the toaster. Whilst the toast was still hot I slathered it with the fishy anchovy butter before spooning on the scrambled eggs. Finally I topped off the dish by crossing over two of the anchovy filets before serving as a lunchtime snack.

How was it? Well, definitely very salty! It made a change to plain old scrambled eggs, but the saltiness of both the anchovies and the capers more or less overwhelmed the creaminess of the eggs and any heat from the cayenne. I enjoyed it, but can’t ever imagine I would to want to eat it at the end of meal, and it certainly didn’t put me in the mood for dessert or for port! If you fancy trying a few other savouries for yourself, you will be pleased to know that the ritual still lives on in the upper-crust gentlemen’s clubs of Pall Mall and the old college dining rooms of Oxford and Cambridge. A true, quirky English tradition!