Home › The Principles of Cookery › PIGEON PIE (a I'Anglaise)
PIGEON PIE (a I'Anglaise)
Take two or more freshly-killed young pigeons. Divide in two lengthwise, cut off their feet at the first joint, and turn their legs inside close to the pinions. Put inside each half bird a little forcemeat made of the livers finely minced, with a little parsley, pepper, salt, and butter. Moisten the edges of a pie-dish with a little stock or water, and line them with strips of pastry a quarter of an inch thick. Place at the bottom of the dish one pound of rump steak cut into neat pieces, and seasoned with pepper and salt. Lay the pigeons upon these, breast downwards, and put the yolk of a hard-boiled egg between each two halves. Sprinkle some pepper and salt and a small quantity of grated nutmeg over the pigeons, put here and there upon them an ounce of butter broken into small pieces, lay on the top a small bay-leaf, and pour over the birds a cupful of nicely-seasoned stock sufficiently strong to form a jelly when cold. If there is any doubt about this, a dessert-spoonful of gelatine must be dissolved in the stock. Cover the pie with a thick crust, ornament prettily, brush over with beaten yolk of egg, put three of the feet, properly cleaned, in the middle of the crust, and bake the pie in a moderate oven. Time to bake, about two hours and a half. Probable cost, 4s., with pigeons at 9d. each. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A raised-crust game pie of the Victorian kind, built so it can be eaten hot or cold in slices. The instructions assume a poulterer who sells birds whole and undressed, so most of the adaptation is at the shopping stage.
- The birds"Young pigeons" means squab — farmed birds of about 4 weeks, sold at 12-16 oz each, available from game dealers and some butchers. Two make a modest pie; three or four suit the amount of steak and stock given. Older wood pigeon can be used but is much leaner and tougher, and the breast will dry over a bake this long.
- Turning the legs inThe pinions are the wing joints. Cutting the feet at the first joint and tucking each leg back against the wing simply makes each half bird compact enough to lie flat, breast down, in the dish. Skip the three cleaned feet in the crust unless you want the period effect — they are traditionally said to have shown a diner that the pie really was pigeon, though that explanation is folklore rather than documented.
- Rump steakIn British usage this is lean rump, not American rump roast. For a two-and-a-half-hour bake, chuck or skirt gives a better result; cut it into pieces roughly 1 inch square so it cooks through in the same time as the birds.
- Moderate ovenThe book gives no temperature; "moderate" is conventionally read as about 350F / 180C. Two and a half hours at that heat will overcolour a pastry lid, so cover it loosely with foil once it has taken a good glaze, and uncover it again towards the end.
- The forcemeatPigeon livers are tiny; the giblets from four birds give perhaps 2 oz. If your birds come without them, chicken livers stand in without complaint. This is a raw stuffing that cooks inside the pie, so it needs no separate treatment.
- Stock and gelatineThe hinge of the whole dish is a stock strong enough to set. A well-reduced brown veal or beef stock will do it unaided; supermarket stock will not. The dessert-spoonful of gelatine is about 2 teaspoons of powdered gelatine per cup of liquid, and it is worth adding as insurance if you mean to serve the pie cold.
- Lining the rimThe strips of pastry a quarter-inch thick along the moistened dish edge are a base for the lid to seal against. Press the lid firmly onto them and cut a vent, or the steam will lift the crust off the filling.
- Cost and yield4s. with pigeons at 9d. is the price note of a book written when a middle-class cook budgeted per dish. Five or six servings holds up: a half bird, some steak and jelly per person.
Pigeon pie was standing food in British kitchens for centuries because dovecotes were standing fixtures — a manor or a substantial farm kept one, and squabs taken from the nest before they flew were a reliable spring and summer meat when little else was young and tender. By the time Cassell's was compiled in the late nineteenth century, the birds were bought from a poulterer rather than fetched from the cote, and the pie had settled into the form recorded here: beef at the bottom to give body and juice, jellied stock so the pie could be carried and cut cold, and three feet set in the middle of the crust. The tag a l'Anglaise distinguishes it from the French treatments of pigeon. The hard-boiled egg yolks tucked between the halves are an old English pie habit shared with veal-and-ham pie, and the cold jelly and decorated lid mark it as sideboard and picnic food of the sort a Victorian household expected to eat away from the dining table.