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Pigeons, Broiled
Pigeons may be broiled whole, or split open and flattened with a cleaver. They are more easily cooked when flattened, but retain their juice better if left whole. Pluck, draw, singe, and wash the bird. Dip it in some oil or clarified butter, season with pepper and salt, and broil over a clear fire until it is nicely browned. Baste once or twice; and in order to do this put the bird on a plate, and with a feather brush it over with oil or butter. Serve as hot as possible, and send mushroom sauce, brown gravy, parsley sauce, tomato sauce, or piquant sauce to table in a tureen. Time to broil the pigeon, fifteen minutes each side. Probable cost, 9d. to 1s. 9d. each. Sufficient for one person.
A straightforward grill recipe whose only real problem is the timing: half an hour of total cooking will destroy a squab. Everything else translates directly.
- The timing is the hingeFifteen minutes a side is far longer than a modern squab or spatchcocked pigeon needs: 6-8 minutes a side over direct heat, or until the breast reads about 130-135F for pink. Pigeon breast cooked through turns grey and livery.
- "A clear fire"Coals burned down past the flame, with no smoke and a steady red glow — the equivalent of a charcoal grill after 25-30 minutes, or a very hot ridged pan. Flame licking the oiled bird will blacken the skin before the flesh is warm.
- Split versus wholeThe advice holds. Spatchcock by cutting out the backbone and flattening with the heel of your hand, and the bird cooks evenly; left whole over a fire it cooks unevenly, the thick parts lagging behind. Flattened is the easier choice on a grill.
- Pluck, draw, singeNone of this applies to a bird bought oven-ready. Singeing burned off the last down and hairs over a flame, which a shop-bought squab has already had done. Do check the cavity for fragments of lung.
- Clarified butterWorth using rather than whole butter, as the original specifies — the milk solids in ordinary butter scorch at grilling heat. Ghee works, as does any neutral oil with a high smoke point.
- The featherFeathers were commonly used for brushing on butter or oil. Any pastry brush does the job; the point is to reoil lightly without knocking the bird off the grid.
- YieldOne bird per person is right for a first course. Squab weigh 12-16 oz whole and yield rather less meat than the size suggests, so allow two each for a main course.
- The saucesAll five are Victorian standards served separately in a tureen. Any of them can be made ahead and kept warm; the bird will not wait, so have the sauce finished before the pigeon goes on the fire.
Cassell's treats pigeon as an everyday economy — the price range of ninepence to one and ninepence puts a single bird well below a joint of meat, and dovecotes on estates and farms supplied young birds cheaply. The bird meant here is most likely the domestic pigeon, and probably a young one, since older birds were generally given the long, wet cooking that produced the pigeon pies of the same period. The list of sauces at the end leaves the choice of accompaniment to the cook rather than prescribing one.