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Pigeons, Pupton Of
Butter a pie-dish rather thickly, and line the inside with a highly-seasoned veal forcemeat about three-quarters of an inch in thickness. Lay upon this three or four thin slices of fat bacon, three plump young pigeons split in halves and flattened, a blanched sweetbread cut into small, a dozen asparagus tops with as many button mushrooms, and the yolks of four hardboiled eggs. Cover the whole with a layer of forcemeat spread on the top like a pie-crust, and bake in a well-heated oven. Serve the pupton turned on a hot dish, with rich brown gravy poured round it. Time to bake, from two to three hours. Probable cost, 6s. Sufficient for six or seven persons.
A forcemeat-lined mould baked and turned out whole — closer to a pâté en croûte than a pie, with veal stuffing standing in for pastry. Most of the updating needed here concerns time and the birds.
- The hinge: the forcemeat must bindThe veal forcemeat is both wall and crust, so it has to be worked to a smooth, sticky paste (a food processor does this in seconds) and pressed firmly into the buttered dish with no gaps. If it is loose or crumbly the pupton will collapse when turned out.
- "Well-heated oven" and the two-to-three hoursThe book gives no oven temperatures; a "well-heated" oven is conventionally read as somewhere in the region of 400-425F, but that is inference, not the book's figure. For a filling of this depth, 350F is more forgiving. The stated two to three hours reflects the depth of the dish and the ovens of the period rather than any modern requirement; a modern squab is tender in well under an hour, and three hours will leave the breast dry and stringy. Bake until the centre of the forcemeat reaches 165F, likely 60-80 minutes for a standard pie-dish.
- Pigeons"Plump young pigeons" means squab, sold at good butchers and by mail order. Two poussins or four quail, split and flattened the same way, work as substitutes. Wood pigeon is darker, leaner and stronger in flavour.
- SweetbreadOrder veal sweetbreads ahead. Soak them in several changes of cold water for a few hours, blanch briefly, then cool and peel away the membrane before dicing — the original assumes a cook who already knows this. If you skip the sweetbread the dish still works.
- Fat baconThe bacon here is probably green (unsmoked), and is mainly there for fat and moisture. Sliced pork back fat, fresh streaky belly or thin barding fat is closer to the intent than modern cured smoked bacon, which will dominate.
- Asparagus and mushroomsUse the top two inches of the spears only, and small whole button mushrooms. Both go in raw; there is more than enough liquid in the dish, and pre-cooking makes them mushy.
- Turning it outRest the baked pupton 10-15 minutes before inverting, and run a thin knife around the rim first. Serve the brown gravy poured around the base rather than over it, as instructed, so the forcemeat crust stays intact.
- Cost and yield"6s." is six shillings, a substantial sum in the 1870s-90s and a sign this was company food. Six or seven servings is realistic if there are vegetables alongside.
"Pupton" is usually traced to the French poupeton (the OED suggests poupelin), a term for a moulded dish in which a lining of forcemeat takes the place of pastry. The form appears in English cookery books of the eighteenth century, where puptons of pigeon and of apples are both found, and by Cassell's day it had become a slightly old-fashioned set piece. The ingredients tell you as much as the method does: young pigeons, veal, sweetbreads, asparagus tips and button mushrooms are a spring-into-summer list, and all were costly. Pigeons were once cheap and local, kept in dovecotes for the table, but by the late nineteenth century they had shifted into the category of delicacy — which is roughly where squab sits today.