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Pigeons in a Mould of Jelly
Roast two plump young pigeons, prepare them by cutting off the ends of the toes, cleaning and singeing the heads, sprinkling salt and pepper in the inside, and trussing the birds with the heads tied in their natural position, by means of a piece of thread fastened round the neck, the feet being bent under the body as if the birds were sitting. Bake the birds, and be careful that they are equally browned all over. As soon as they are done enough, cover them to preserve their colour. Take a quart of the liquid in which a knuckle of veal or a couple of calf's feet have been boiled, and which forms a strong jelly when cold. Free it from fat and sediment, and boil it with a bunch of sweet herbs, a blade of mace, a sprig of thyme, two bay-leaves, three or four cloves, and a little salt, and when the liquid is nicely flavoured let it cool, and clear it by boiling with it the beaten whites and crushed shells of two eggs-mixed with a cupful of cold water-and straining it through a jelly-bag. Pour a little of this jelly, about an inch and a half deep, into the mould intended for the pigeons. When it is set without being quite hard, put the birds side by side into it, with the heads and backs downwards, and with a sprig of myrtle in the bill of each. Fill up the mould with the rest of the jelly, which should cover the feet at least an inch and a half, and leave it in a cool place until it is quite hard. Pigeons in the mould of jelly make a very pretty supper dish, where a large number and variety of dishes are required. They should be prepared fully twenty-four hours before they are wanted, and the mould should be kept on ice, if possible. The contents must be turned out before serving. Time, twenty to thirty minutes to bake the pigeons. Probable cost, 4s. Sufficient for a two-quart mould.
A Victorian supper-table set piece: two whole roast pigeons suspended head-down in a two-quart mould of clear veal aspic. The work is all in the jelly, and the one thing that decides success is that the jelly must be strong enough to unmould cleanly and clear enough to see the birds through.
- The hinge: jelly strengthA quart of stock from a veal knuckle or two calf's feet sets far harder than modern stock, because those joints are almost pure collagen. If you use ordinary stock, bloom powdered gelatine into it — roughly three envelopes (about 7 tsp) per quart for a jelly firm enough to turn out and hold two birds — and test a spoonful on a cold saucer before committing.
- Clarify cold, then don't stirThe whites and crushed shells must go into cool or barely warm stock, then come slowly to a bare simmer undisturbed so the raft forms and traps the sediment. Ladle through a dampened jelly bag or muslin without pressing. Once boiling is over, keep the strained jelly warm but not hot.
- Pigeon means squabBuy farmed squab, about 12–16 oz each; wood pigeon is leaner and tougher and will look and eat quite differently. Heads-on birds must be ordered from a game dealer; the head can be left off if it cannot be got, with the feet bent under the body as the recipe directs.
- Oven heatThe book gives twenty to thirty minutes and no temperature at all, so any modern setting is a guess; a brisk oven is the usual inference. For a cold dish that will sit twenty-four hours in jelly, cook the squab through to 165F in the breast; pushed much beyond that it turns dry and grey inside the clear jelly, which shows every fault.
- Setting in stagesThe inch-and-a-half base layer must be set but still tacky before the birds go in, or they will float and shift. Chill the mould between additions and add the remaining jelly cool and syrupy rather than warm, so it does not melt the base.
- MyrtleCommon myrtle (Myrtus communis), used purely as ornament in the bill. It is aromatic but not a culinary herb in Britain; do not substitute crape myrtle or periwinkle, which are not myrtles. A bay leaf or a small sprig of thyme does the same decorative job.
- Twenty-four hours, refrigerated"A cool place" and "kept on ice" meant a larder or an ice chest. Cooked poultry sitting in jelly for a full day belongs in the refrigerator at 40F or below; the aspic is a moist, low-acid medium and gives no protection of its own.
- Unmoulding and yieldDip the mould briefly in warm water, wipe it, and invert onto a chilled dish. The recipe gives no serving count, only 'sufficient for a two-quart mould'; with two birds it is a buffet dish rather than a main course. The 'probable cost, 4s.' is Victorian shillings and is only useful as a period price signal.
Moulded aspics of this kind sat at the centre of the Victorian and Edwardian cold supper table, where a hostess was expected to put out "a large number and variety of dishes" and each was judged on appearance as much as flavour. The technique is generally traced to the French chaud-froid and aspic work often associated with Carême earlier in the century, though the line of descent is looser than it is usually made to sound; what it did depend on was something no longer standard in domestic kitchens: a constant supply of calf's feet and veal knuckles, cheap butcher's offcuts that yielded a naturally rigid jelly without commercial gelatine. Pigeon was a familiar bird rather than an exotic one, kept in dovecotes and sold young, though Cassell's own "probable cost, 4s." suggests two birds were no trifling supper expense. The instruction to set the birds head-down with a sprig in the bill, feet folded as if sitting, belongs to the same taste that produced hares posed on their haunches and larks in pastry coffins — food arranged to declare itself as the animal it had been, a convention that faded fast after the First World War along with the ice chest and the kitchen staff who kept it filled.