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PIGEONS (en Surprise)
Pluck and draw two plump young pigeons, and truss them as if for boiling. Put them into boiling water for a minute to blanch them, then take them out, put in their places two fine large lettuces, and let these boil for fully fifteen minutes. Whilst they are boiling, make a forcemeat with the livers of the birds, a slice of bacon, two or three leaves of tarragon, two shallots, and a spoonful of parsley, all finely minced, seasoned with pepper and salt, and bound together with the beaten yolk of an egg. Take up the lettuces, press the water from them, open them, without taking off the leaves, line them with the forcemeat, and place a pigeon inside each lettuce so as to be hid entirely. Tie the ends with thread, and stew all gently together in as much stock as will cover the pigeons. A bunch of parsley, a carrot, an onion, two cloves, and half a blade of mace may be put into the saucepan to flavour the gravy. When the pigeons are done enough take them up, drain them, and remove the twine. Keep them hot before the fire whilst the sauce is strained and thickened with a dessert-spoonful of brown thickening. Serve the pigeons in the lettuces on a hot dish, with the sauce poured round them. Time, one hour to stew the pigeons. Probable cost, 2s. 4d. Sufficient for two persons.
A Victorian entrée that hides each bird inside a boiled lettuce — the "surprise" is structural, and the whole thing depends on the lettuce holding together. Most of the work is in the wrapping.
- Keep the lettuce wholeThe hinge of the dish: the lettuce is boiled with its base intact so the leaves stay attached, then opened out like a book, lined with forcemeat and folded back around the bird. Large cos or romaine heads work best; loose-leaf and iceberg will not survive the handling.
- Sourcing the birds"Young pigeons" means squab, a bird of roughly four weeks, around 12-16 oz each. They are sold oven-ready from game dealers and many online butchers. Wild pigeon is older, tougher and darker, and behaves quite differently in a stew.
- Trussing and the liversTrussed "as if for boiling" means legs tucked close to the body and wings folded back, so the bird makes a compact parcel that the lettuce can close over. Squab is often sold with the liver in the cavity; if yours is not, two chicken livers stand in without much loss.
- The blanching stepA minute in boiling water firms the skin and sets the shape before wrapping. It is not a cooking step, and the water is then reused for the lettuces.
- Brown thickeningA period pantry staple: flour cooked in butter or dripping until nut-brown, kept on hand in a jar. A dessertspoon is about two teaspoons. A brown roux or a little beurre manié whisked into the strained stock does the same job.
- Thread versus twineThe recipe says thread, and later twine. Cotton butcher's twine is easier to remove and less likely to cut into the lettuce than sewing thread. Tie loosely at both ends and once around the middle.
- Stewing timeAn hour at a bare simmer suits farmed squab if the pot never boils; an hour of stewing takes the bird well past any safe temperature. Wild pigeon of unknown age may need longer, and older birds will stay tough however long they stew.
- Yield and costTwo birds serve two, as the recipe states. The "probable cost, 2s. 4d." is a Victorian household-budget note, not a modern guide -- squab is now the expensive part by a wide margin.
Pigeon was cheap protein in Britain for centuries — manor houses and farms kept dovecotes, and squab taken from the nest before it could fly was tender and free of the toughness of the adult bird. By the time Cassell's was compiled in the later nineteenth century, pigeon had slipped from staple to genteel entrée, which is why it turns up here dressed up with a French name and a conjuring trick. Cooking small birds wrapped in leaves is old and widespread, and dishes with something hidden inside were given the name en surprise. The forcemeat of liver, bacon, shallot and tarragon is straightforwardly French in accent, as much of Cassell's more ambitious cookery is — the book was writing for households that wanted restaurant manners at home.