Four Pigeons
One pint of good Stock.
A block of fried Bread.
One ounce of Glaze Half a pint of Financière Sauce.
What survives here is the ingredient list for the garnish and finish, not the method — and, oddly, not the pigeons. Treat it as a set of components for a classic braised-pigeon entrée and supply the technique from standard practice.
- The list is incompleteNo method is given, and the birds themselves are absent from the ingredients. Anyone cooking from this needs a full braised-pigeon recipe alongside it; what is printed here covers only the stock, glaze, sauce and the bread base the birds are served on.
- Imperial measuresA British pint is 20 fl oz, so the pint of stock is 2½ US cups and the half-pint of sauce is 1¼ cups. An ounce of glaze is about 2 tablespoons.
- GlazeMeat glaze is brown stock reduced until it sets to a sticky, rubbery block at room temperature. A tub of good commercial demi-glace or veal glace answers, or reduce a quart of brown stock down to a couple of tablespoons.
- Financière sauceA madeira-fortified brown sauce, classically with truffle and mushroom trimmings and often quenelles, cockscombs and olives in the garnish. Cockscombs are hard to come by outside specialist butchers; mushrooms, olives and a little truffle or truffle oil carry the character.
- The block of fried breadA croûte or socle: a slab of crustless white bread, cut square or oval, fried in clarified butter until crisp and gold, used as a platform to lift the birds above the sauce. Cut it slightly larger than the footprint of the four birds and fry it just before serving so it does not soften.
- The pigeonsFarmed squab, about 12 to 16 oz each, is the modern equivalent. Wood pigeon is leaner and tougher and wants longer, gentler braising.
- CookingBrown the birds, then braise in the stock, covered, in a 325F oven — 30 to 40 minutes for squab, up to an hour for wood pigeon. Squab breast is at its best at 130–135F and turns dry and livery if pushed further; if you want the legs fully tender, joint the birds and braise the legs longer than the crowns.
- FinishingStrain and reduce the braising stock, whisk in the glaze for gloss and depth, and serve the financière sauce around rather than over the birds so the fried bread stays crisp.
- YieldFour birds would serve four as an entrée in the modern sense, and perhaps twice that in the Victorian one, where the entrée was a small dish served between the fish and the roast.
In late-Victorian and Edwardian service an entrée was a made dish of moderate size, sauced and garnished, that came between the fish and the roast — which is why four small birds, a croûte and a pint of stock were reckoned enough. The financière garnish takes its name from the French for financier, generally explained as a reference to its costliness: truffles, quenelles, mushrooms, olives and madeira, the whole bound in a rich brown sauce. Pigeon suited such a dish, its small, dark, quick-cooking breasts being handsome on the plate rather than filling. Books that print little more than a component list assume a reader already taught to braise a bird and make a brown sauce.