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Bouquet Garni (One pint of Brown Stock)
One pint of Brown Stock.
Seasoning. One tablespoonful of Flour.
Cut the bacon into neat pieces and fry for five minutes. Cut the pigeons in half, truss each half as neatly as possible, and then fry them a nice brown on both sides; add the vegetables and stock, and simmer gently for one hour. Mix in a basin a tablespoonful of flour, pepper, and salt, and add a gill of the stock; half an hour before serving add the flour, etc., to the pigeons, and stir till it boils up and thickens. When cooked, dish the pigeons in a circle on mashed potatoes; strain the gravy round and over them, and put some peas or spinach in the centre.
The heading has come adrift in the original printing — this is a braise of pigeon with bacon and vegetables, and the ingredient list beyond the stock, flour and seasoning is missing. Work from the method, which is complete enough to follow.
- What you actually needThe original list is missing, so this is a reconstruction: for two pigeons, about 4 oz streaky bacon, and root vegetables to taste — an onion, a carrot, a stick of celery would suit. The recipe itself specifies only a pint of brown stock, a tablespoon of flour, pepper and salt, with mashed potato and peas or spinach to serve.
- A gillA quarter of an Imperial pint, so 5 fl oz — a little more than half a US cup. It is taken from the pint of stock already in the pan, not added on top.
- Pigeon, and how longFarmed squab sold today is young and tender and will be done in 30-40 minutes of gentle simmering; a full hour turns it dry and stringy. Wild wood pigeon is another matter and genuinely wants the hour or longer, since the legs are tough.
- Trussing the halvesSplitting a bird and then trussing each half sounds odd but is the hinge of the presentation: a short length of string round each piece keeps the leg tucked against the breast so the halves hold their shape through an hour in liquid and stand up neatly on the potato.
- Fry the bacon first, and keep the fatThe five minutes of bacon frying is there to render fat for browning the pigeon. Brown the birds well in it; much of the colour of the finished gravy comes from this step, with the rest from the brown stock.
- The thickeningSlaking the flour with a little stock in a basin, then stirring it back in, is a liaison that lumps easily. Work the stock into the flour a little at a time, then pour it into the simmering pan through a strainer and stir until it boils and clears — flour needs a couple of minutes at the boil or the gravy tastes raw.
- Strain the gravyThe vegetables have given everything they have after an hour and are meant to be discarded with the straining. Serve the peas or spinach separately cooked, as directed, in the middle of the ring.
- YieldHalf a pigeon is a modest portion and a whole one generous; two birds would serve two as a main course, or four at the smaller portion size usual for a made dish of this kind.
Pigeon was ordinary meat in Britain for centuries before it became a restaurant luxury. Manor houses and farms kept dovecotes, and squabs — young birds taken from the nest before they had flown, and so still tender — were a dependable supply of fresh meat in seasons when little else was available. The dish sits in the entrée slot of its period: a small bird, halved and dressed up with a piped or spooned border of mashed potato and a spot of green in the centre, in the assembled, ringed style that professional cookery of the period favoured for anything sent up between courses. The garbled heading looks like a slipped line — the sort of thing that happens when compilations of this kind are set — though how it arose cannot be known. Bouquet garni itself is the bundle of thyme, parsley and bay meant to be lifted out before serving; whether it belonged in this recipe's missing list or to a neighbouring entry is unclear.