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Removes or Releves: Pigeons
Pigeons stewed in stock, with bacon, mushrooms, onions, etc., are served in the sauce as Pigeons en compote.
Pigeons à la Crapaudine are breadcrumbed and broiled; served with Piquante sauce. en ragoût d'écrevisses, or à la Merveilleuse, are stewed, and served in a rich white sauce with mushrooms and crayfish. à l'Algérienne are stewed and served with French plums. à la Princesse are stuffed with foie gras and mushrooms, stewed, and served with Espagnole sauce. aux petits pois, or à la St. Germain, are stuffed, and stewed with green peas. À la Nivernaise, they are served with mashed turnips.
Pâté chaud de pigeons, or pigeonneaux, is a hot pigeon pie.
Pâté de pigeons à l'Anglaise is a pigeon pie with collops of beef steak.
GAME.
VENISON.
The haunch of venison, or Hanche de venaison, ranks first among removes.
Dressed à la Corinthienne, it is larded, soaked in marinade and roasted; served in a brown sauce with port wine, currants, currant jelly, etc.
Quartier de venaison is a fore-quarter of venison.
Gigot de cerf, or venaison, is a leg of venison.
Filet de cerf, or venaison, is a fillet of venison.
Épaule de cerf, or venaison, is a shoulder of venison. Carré de cerf, or venaison, is a neck of venison.
The fore-quarter of a roebuck is served as Quartier de chevreuil; the leg, as Gigot de chevreuil; the saddle, as Cimier de chevreuil.
Dressed à la St. Hubert, it is soaked in marinade, larded, braised, and served in a rich brown sauce with prunes.
A venison pasty is called Pâté de venaison.
HARE.
Lièvre, or Lévraut, sauce Poivrade, is larded, roasted, and served with Poivrade sauce. au jus de groseilles-larded, roasted, and served in brown sauce with currant jelly and olives.
K Lièvre, or Lévraut, rôtie à la Finnoise-larded, roasted, and served in a sauce of stock, vinegar, sour cream, etc. à la Matanzas-soaked in marinade, stuffed with a forcemeat of fowl, and braised. en daube is boned, and stewed in a jar with bacon, veal, game stock, etc.; it is served cold, in the jar.
Râble de lièvre rôti is a baron of hare, larded and roasted. À la St. Denys, it is stuffed, braised, and served with truffle sauce.
Pâté de lièvre à l'Écossaise is a pie of hare stewed with wine, etc.
Pain de lièvre à la Yorkshire is a pie of layers of slices of hare, ham, and hard-boiled eggs, with game jelly; it is served cold.
RABBITS.
Pigeons, then venison, then hare. One of these is a bird a household could raise; the other two had to be shot. The page is organised as if that were not the most important thing about it.
- These pigeons are squabsYoung birds raised for the table, which is why they can be stewed whole in a compote, stuffed with foie gras, or cooked with peas and still be tender. Woodpigeon shot wild is a darker, tougher, much leaner bird; take the breasts off and cook them fast, because the rest will not repay stewing.
- The book states its own hierarchy“The haunch of venison ranks first among removes.” That is not about flavour. It is about size, about the spectacle of carving it, and above all about the fact that it could not be bought by most people who might read the sentence.
- A pâté here is a piePâté chaud de pigeons, pâté de venaison, pâté de lièvre à l’Écossaise — all pastry with a filling, hot or cold. Read the word as the smooth potted paste it now means and you will misread half this page.
- Cimier, gigot, carré, épauleThe French names divide a deer differently from a modern butcher’s chart, and they are given here for roebuck specifically. Cimier is the saddle, gigot the leg, carré the neck end, épaule the shoulder. Ask a butcher for a cimier and you will get a blank look; ask for a saddle of roe and you will get somewhere.
- En daube, cold, in the jarThe hare is boned, cooked slowly in a sealed jar with bacon and veal and game stock, and sent to table cold in the same jar. The set jelly is both the preservation and the dish, and the vessel it cooked in is the vessel it is served from. That is a complete method, and it still works.
- Marinade before braisingSt. Hubert, Corinthienne and Matanzas all soak the meat first. On game that had hung in a cool larder this softened and seasoned at once. On chilled farmed venison it mostly just makes the surface grey, so shorten it hard or leave it out.
Everything on this page except the pigeons arrives by gun or by gift. Deer and hare were not articles of ordinary trade for a household, and the line ranking the haunch of venison first among removes is therefore a statement about land rather than about cooking: a table that could show one either held a park or knew somebody who did. The pigeons are the counterweight. They were the one bird a household could keep and breed in numbers at home, which is exactly why there are more ways of cooking them on this page than there are of cooking the deer.