To Stew Pigeons
Prepare as for roasting them; cut strips of salt pork an inch long and half an inch wide, roll the strips in pepper, placing a strip in the body of each bird, also a piece of bread of the same size; then fill the bodies with bits of sour apples: lay the pigeons in a stewpan, breast down, dredge with flour, pour in just water enough to cover them; season with salt and pepper, stew over a moderate fire one hour; serve with the gravy around them in a dish.
A plain braise that depends on the salt pork and sour apple inside each bird rather than on any added stock. The main adjustments are sourcing the birds and rethinking the flat one-hour timing.
- "Prepare as for roasting"The book assumes you know this means plucked, singed, drawn and trussed. Buy squab or farmed pigeon already dressed; wild pigeon in the United States today generally means feral rock dove or native species such as band-tailed pigeon and mourning dove, which are managed as game with seasons and bag limits.
- Squab vs. old pigeonFarmed squab is 12-16 oz and slaughtered under a month old, so it is tender and needs 25-35 minutes of gentle simmering, not an hour. A full hour was written for tough older birds and will reduce squab breast to dry threads.
- Salt porkModern salt pork is very heavily cured. Use unsmoked salt pork or pancetta, and if it is stiff with salt, blanch the strips a minute before rolling them in pepper. Reduce the added salt in the cooking water accordingly.
- Sour applesThe period standard was a hard, sharp cooking apple. Granny Smith or Bramley works; a modern eating apple is too sweet and collapses to sugar in an hour.
- "Moderate fire"On the stovetop this means a bare simmer with the surface barely trembling, not a rolling boil. A pot lid, though not specified, keeps the birds covered as the liquid reduces.
- Dredging with flourFlouring the birds in the pan thickens the liquid into gravy as it cooks. If the result stays thin, lift the pigeons out and reduce the liquid hard for a few minutes rather than adding more flour at the end.
- DonenessPigeon is dark-meated and traditionally served pink at the breast, but a braise like this cooks it through; the thigh should pull easily from the bone.
- YieldOne bird per person as a main course, two if the birds are small. Two pigeons will fit a 3-quart pan; four need a wide braiser so they sit breast down in a single layer.
Pigeon was among the cheapest game in nineteenth-century American kitchens because it barely counted as game: the passenger pigeon was netted and barreled in such numbers that it sold cheaply in city markets until its collapse in the 1880s and extinction in 1914. Books like this one, published as that supply vanished, still treat pigeon with the economy of a household bird -- stuffed with bread, salt pork and windfall apples rather than anything costly. The technique itself is much older than the book: packing the cavity of lean birds with pork fat and tart fruit to counter the dryness of the meat runs straight back through English cookery, where pigeon pies and stewed pigeons were standing dishes for centuries.