To make Woodcock à la Diane, woodcock meat is made into a forcemeat (i.e. ground till it is almost a pâté.)
Then it is mixed with cream, then packed into small buttered tapered moulds about 2 inches (5 cm) tall, tapering down from about 1 ½ inches (3.5 cm wide) at the top to slightly narrower at the bottom.
The moulds are then poached. The moulded forcemeat is then turned out of its moulds, and served with a sherry sauce and a garnish of diced ham and truffles.
Literature & Lore
(845). BONDONS OF WOODCOCK À LA DIANE (Bondons de Bécasses à la Diane). Butter some cylindrical molds the same size and shape as those for No. 844. Fill them with a woodcock and cream forcemeat (No. 75), and finish exactly as for timbales; unmold and dress. Serve separately a sherry sauce (No. 492), with small three-sixteenth inch dice of ham and truffles added.
— Ranhofer, Charles. The Epicurean. A Complete Treatise of Analytical and Practical Studies on The Culinary Art . Ranhofer. 1894. Page 370.