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Pigeons, Jugged
Pluck, singe, and draw three or four freshly-killed young pigeons. Stuff them with a forcemeat made as follows. Mince the livers finely, and mix with them an equal weight of finely-shredded suet and of finely-grated bread-crumbs, the peel of a quarter of a lemon chopped small, the bruised yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, a table-spoonful of chopped parsley, a pinch of powdered thyme, and a little salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg. Mix the ingredients thoroughly, and moisten them with an ounce of fresh butter, and a well-beaten egg. Fill the crops of the pigeons with this mixture, and tie or sew the vents securely. Brown the birds in a stewpan over the fire with a little hot fat; dredge a little pepper and salt over them, and put them into an earthen jar, with a handful of parsley, a sprig of thyme, half a dozen peppercorns, half a head of celery cut into small pieces, three cloves, a small nutmeg, grated, a glass of claret, and half a pint of stock or water. Cover the jar either with a closely-fitting lid or with three or four folds of paper tied over it. Put it into a saucepan of boiling water, which must be kept boiling until the pigeons are done, being careful only that the water is not so high that it can enter the jar. When the pigeons are done enough, strain the gravy into a saucepan, stir a spoonful of brown thickening into it, and let it boil a few minutes. Serve the pigeons on a hot dish, with the gravy poured over and around them, and garnished with slices of lemon. This dish may be increased in quantity by the addition of a pound of rump steak. This should be cut into very thin slices, over which a little of the forcemeat may be spread evenly and thinly. The slices should then be rolled up, tied with a little thread to preserve their form, and cooked with the pigeons. Time to boil the pigeons, one and a half hours. Probable cost, exclusive of the steak and wine, 3s. Sufficient for three or four persons.
An English jugged dish: stuffed birds sealed in an earthenware jar and cooked in a water bath, which keeps every drop of juice in the pot. Almost everything here translates directly; the jar and the timing need the most attention.
- The jug and the water bathThe point of the sealed jar standing in boiling water is gentle, even heat with no evaporation. A wide-mouth canning jar or a small lidded stoneware crock in a deep pot of simmering water reproduces it exactly; a heavy lidded casserole in a 300F oven gets you close, though you lose a little liquid. Keep the water level below the rim, as the original insists, and top it up with boiling water as it falls.
- PigeonsThese are squab — young, never-flown birds, 12 to 16 oz each, sold frozen by good butchers and game dealers. Wild pigeon is tougher and much leaner, and only the breasts are usually worth having. Birds now arrive plucked and drawn, so ignore the first sentence.
- TimingAn hour and a half assumes birds of uncertain age. Farmed squab in a sealed jar are tender in 50 to 60 minutes, and past that the breast meat shreds and the legs fall from the bone. If you add the beef rolls, they want the longer time, so start them first and put the birds in later.
- The liversFour pigeon livers amount to very little. Chicken livers are the obvious stand-in — about 3 oz, trimmed of any green-stained parts — and give you enough to bind against equal weights of suet and crumbs, roughly 3 oz each.
- SuetShredded beef suet from a butcher, or the packaged shredded suet sold for puddings. Frozen butter grated on the coarse side of a box grater works if suet is unavailable, though the forcemeat will be softer.
- Go carefully with the nutmeg"A small nutmeg, grated" into the jar is on the order of two teaspoons of ground nutmeg — overwhelming to a modern palate, and it will bully the claret and celery out of the gravy. A quarter teaspoon in the braising liquid, plus the pinch already in the forcemeat, is closer to what the dish wants.
- MeasuresA glass of claret is usually reckoned at about 2 to 2 1/2 fl oz of dry red wine. Half a pint in an English book of this date is 10 fl oz. "The crops" is strictly the pouch at the neck end, though the instruction to sew the vents shows the body cavity was filled as well; stuff loosely, since the forcemeat swells.
- Brown thickeningFlour browned slowly in butter until nut-coloured, a dry-ish roux of the sort kept ready for gravies like this. A spoonful of ordinary beurre manie whisked into the strained, boiling gravy will thicken it much the same way, though without the browned flavour, or reduce the liquid hard and skip the flour.
- YieldThree or four birds serve three or four as the original says, allowing one each. The pound of rump steak, spread with forcemeat and rolled, is a stretcher for a larger table and worth making on its own account.
Jugging is an old English method — most familiar from jugged hare — in which meat is sealed in a tall earthenware jug or jar and set in a pan of boiling water, so that nothing escapes but heat travels slowly and evenly. It belongs to a kitchen with an open fire and a swinging pot rather than a controllable oven, and it survived in print well into the era of the closed range because it produces such concentrated gravy. Pigeons were a cheap and constant meat in Britain for centuries: country houses and farms kept dovecotes, and squab could be taken from the nest before the birds had exercised their breast muscles, which is why the flesh in these recipes is treated as tender rather than as game. Cassell's quotes a probable cost of 3s. — a reminder that pigeons were bought at market rather than fetched off a beam, and were sliding from everyday food towards the small treat they are today.