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Pigeons, Stewed, with Cabbage
Pluck, singe, and draw two pigeons, and stuff them with a forcemeat made as follows. Mince the livers finely, and mix with them an equal quantity of finely-shredded beef suet, and grated bread-crumbs. Add a little pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg, a table-spoonful of chopped parsley, and a salt-spoonful of powdered thyme. Moisten the whole with the yolk of a beaten egg. Truss the pigeons firmly, as if for boiling. Half boil a good-sized white cabbage, and shred it finely. Drain thoroughly, and lay it at the bottom of a stewpan. Place the pigeons upon it, cover them with white stock, put the lid on the saucepan, and stew the whole gently till quite tender, then add a lump of butter, the size of an egg, rolled in flour, and two table-spoonfuls of thick cream. Stew a few minutes longer, and serve as hot as possible. The pigeons should be placed on a hot dish with the cabbage and sauce round them. Probable cost, 2s. 6d. Sufficient for two or three persons.
A braise in the older sense: the birds sit on a bed of part-cooked cabbage and finish in stock enriched at the end with butter and cream. Most of the work is in the trussing and the forcemeat.
- What bird to buyFarmed squab (young pigeon), roughly 12-16 oz each, is the closest match and stays tender. Wild wood pigeon is much leaner and tougher and wants a longer, gentler stew; supermarket pigeon breasts will not work here since the recipe depends on a whole cavity for the stuffing.
- LiversSquab are often sold drawn, so the livers may not come with them. Chicken livers substitute directly, weight for weight; you need only about 2 oz total for two birds.
- Beef suetShredded packet suet is sold in the baking aisle and works, though fresh beef fat from a butcher gives a cleaner flavour. Use equal volumes of liver, suet and dry breadcrumbs, and mix the stuffing loosely so it does not set solid.
- Salt-spoonfulA salt-spoon is about a quarter teaspoon. A Victorian tablespoon is broadly comparable to the modern one.
- Half boil the cabbageFive to six minutes in boiling salted water for a wedged white cabbage, then drain hard and press out the water. Wet cabbage will dilute the stock and leave the finished sauce thin and grey.
- Stock and heat"Cover them with white stock" means roughly 1 to 1.5 pints of light chicken or veal stock. Keep it at a bare tremble, not a boil; hard boiling toughens the breast meat and shreds the cabbage to mush. Farmed squab are tender in 35-45 minutes, wild birds may need 1.5 hours.
- Butter rolled in flourThis is beurre manie: work an egg-sized lump of butter (about 2 oz) with a scant ounce of flour to a paste, then whisk it into the simmering liquid in small pieces. Give it three or four minutes to cook out the raw flour taste before adding the cream.
- DonenessStewed this way the birds are cooked right through until tender rather than served pink; the stuffing contains raw liver and egg and should reach 165F. Check the centre of the forcemeat, not just the bird.
- YieldTwo birds serve two generously or three modestly, as stated. Serve immediately: the sauce is butter- and cream-bound and will separate if held hot for long.
Pigeon was a long-established and often unremarkable English meat rather than only a luxury. Dovecotes were common on manors and, later, on farms through the medieval and early modern periods, supplying squabs in the lean weeks before other young meat came in, and by the nineteenth century pigeons were widely used in pies and stews. The pairing with cabbage follows the same principle as the French pigeons aux choux and the various perdrix aux choux: the cabbage is there to absorb fat and stock and to give the lean birds something to braise into. The costing of half a crown for a dish feeding two or three suggests a moderate rather than a cheap dish, and well below a joint of beef. The forcemeat of liver, suet and crumbs bound with egg yolk is a common Victorian stuffing formula, applied here with the bird's own offal so nothing is wasted.