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Pigeons, Pate Chaud Of
Make some stiff paste as follows. Boil four ounces of lard in half a pint of water. Stir this while hot with a pound of flour to which a little salt has been added, and work the whole into a stiff, smooth paste. Shape two-thirds of it according to the directions given for shaping raised pies, fill it with bran or flour, roll out the untouched piece of paste, place it on the top as a lid, ornament in any way that may be preferred, brush over with beaten egg, and bake in a well-heated oven. When the paste is done enough, cut out the lid, remove the bran carefully, and fill the pie with stewed pigeons. Put with them stewed mushrooms, or any other garnish, and pour a little poivrade sauce over the whole. Serve as hot as possible. The shell of this pie may be made and baked the day before it is wanted, and put into the oven to heat when the pigeons are ready for serving. Time to bake, three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, 5s. Sufficient for five or six persons.
This is a hot-water-crust raised pie baked blind and filled at the table's edge, not a pie baked with its filling inside. Everything depends on the shell standing up on its own.
- The hinge: fill at the last momentThe crust is baked empty and the stewed pigeons go in only when the pie is about to travel to the table. Filling it early, or letting it stand in sauce, collapses the walls of a pastry that has no tin to lean on.
- The paste4 oz lard boiled in half a pint of water (an imperial half-pint, about 1 1/4 cups), stirred into 1 lb (about 3 1/2 cups) flour with salt. Work it while it is still hot — hot-water crust is only pliable warm, and it sets hard and brittle as it cools.
- Bran as blind-baking fillerBran or flour, as here, was one of the usual fillers for holding a raised shell's shape. Dried beans, rice or ceramic beads over a foil or parchment lining do the same job and are easier to lift out cleanly. Whatever fills it must be dry and must come out completely.
- "A well-heated oven"No temperature is given; something in the region of 400-425F would suit the three-quarters of an hour specified. The shell wants to set fast; a slack oven lets the walls slump before the crust firms.
- PigeonsDomestic squab, sold at good butchers and online, is the modern equivalent — wood pigeon is leaner and stronger-flavoured. The recipe does not say how many birds to stew, only that the pie serves five or six. Wild-shot birds should be checked for shot.
- Poivrade sauceA peppery brown sauce built on a mirepoix, vinegar and crushed peppercorns, usually finished with game or veal stock. A well-reduced brown sauce sharpened with red wine vinegar and coarse pepper stands in. Use only a little — the crust is not waterproof.
- Reheating the shellThe book's own advice is sound: bake the shell a day before and put it into the oven to heat when the pigeons are ready. It gives no temperature; a moderate oven, around 325F, is a reasonable reading, with the shell kept dry while the birds finish stewing.
- Yield and costFive to six people, as stated. The "5s." is late-Victorian shillings and has no useful modern equivalent beyond signalling that this was a dish for a substantial household.
Pâté chaud is simply "hot pie" — the French term distinguishing a raised pie eaten warm from the pâté froid set with jelly and served cold from the sideboard. The free-standing hot-water crust behind it is much older than either term: medieval and early modern English "coffins" were stiff flour-and-water cases that served as baking vessel and storage container, and only gradually became something anyone expected to eat. Filling the case with bran while it baked is a workshop trick often associated with that tradition, and it survives in Victorian manuals, where raised pies might be built by hand around a wooden block rather than in a hinged tin — though moulds and hinged tins were used in Victorian kitchens too. Pigeons appear constantly in books of this period because dovecotes and pigeon lofts still supplied many country houses with cheap young birds; Cassell's treats them as an everyday roasting and stewing meat in a way few modern British cookbooks do.