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Pigeons, Stewed
Pluck and draw two plump young pigeons, and divide them into quarters. Put these into a stewpan with a little salt, and a small quantity of water, say as much as will three-parts cover them. Place the lid on the saucepan, and let the birds stew gently until they are almost done, then add a pinch of pepper, and half an ounce of fresh butter, and let them simmer again until they are sufficiently cooked. Take them up, thicken the gravy with a tea-spoonful of flour mixed smoothly in it, and add two table-spoonfuls of chopped parsley. Let it boil, then draw it from the fire, let it cool for a minute, and stir into it a well-beaten egg. Put the pigeons in again to get hot, and serve immediately. The gravy must not boil after the egg is added. A little cream is a great improvement to this dish, though it may be dispensed with. Time, twenty minutes to stew the pigeons. Probable cost, 1s. 9d. Sufficient for two persons.
A plain braise finished with an egg liaison, which is the only step that can go wrong. Everything else is a gentle simmer in barely enough water to cover.
- The hinge: the eggOnce the beaten egg goes in, the sauce must never boil or it will scramble into threads. Draw the pan off the heat, let it stop bubbling, stir the egg in steadily, and return the pigeons only long enough to warm through over the lowest heat.
- What "pigeon" means hereThis is squab, a young bird of about four weeks, dressed weight roughly 12-16 oz, sold by good butchers and game dealers. Wild wood pigeon is a different proposition: darker, leaner and considerably tougher, and it will want an hour or more of gentle braising rather than twenty minutes.
- Twenty minutes is for squab onlyThe stated time assumes tender young birds cut into quarters. Test the thigh joint; if it resists, keep simmering. Legs and thighs of any pigeon toughen before they give, so cook until the joint loosens rather than to a clock.
- Half an ounce of butterThat is one tablespoon. It goes in near the end simply to enrich the cooking liquid, not to fry anything.
- Thickening with a teaspoon of flourSlake the flour in a little cold water or cooled gravy first, then stir it into the pan and boil briefly to cook out the raw taste, before the egg is added. One teaspoon gives a barely napping sauce, which is the intention; the egg does the rest of the body.
- The waterThe recipe fixes no quantity, only enough to three-parts cover the birds, so the amount depends on the pan; expect roughly a cup or two. Chicken or game stock in place of plain water improves matters considerably without changing the method.
- The creamTwo to three tablespoons, beaten into the egg before it goes into the pan, both enriches the sauce and buffers it slightly against curdling.
- YieldTwo birds, two servings, as the original says. It needs something starchy alongside; boiled potatoes, plain rice or toast to catch the sauce.
Pigeon was cheap meat in Britain for centuries because it largely fed itself: manor houses, farms and even modest holdings kept a dovecote, and squabs were taken from the nest at the point of greatest tenderness, before they had flown and worked their muscles. By the time Cassell's dictionary appeared in the late nineteenth century the dovecote was fading but pigeons were still a common, unremarkable market bird; the recipe quotes a cost of 1s 9d for a dish for two and offers no explanation of the ingredient at all. The finish here, a sauce bound with beaten egg and a little cream off the heat, is a liaison generally traced to French practice and used across European cookery, the same technique behind fricassée, one that survives in modern practice largely in custards and in sauces like avgolemono.