Pigeon, to Carve
A very straightforward plan is adopted in carving a pigeon; the knife is carried sharply in A PIGEON.
B the direction of the line as shown from A to B, entirely through the bird, cutting it into two precisely equal and similar parts.
PIGEON PIE.
If it is necessary to make three pieces of it, a small wing should be cut off with the leg on either side, thus serving two persons; and, by this means, there will be sufficient meat left on the breast to send to a third person.
Pigeon Pie. (Epsom Grand-Stand Recipe.) INGREDIENTS.-1½ lb. of rumpsteak, 2 or 3 pigeons, 3 slices of ham, pepper and salt to taste, 2 oz. of butter, 4 eggs, puffcrust. AVERAGE COST, 5s. Cut the steak into pieces about 2 inches square, and with it line the bottom of a pie-dish, seasoning it well with pepper and salt. Clean the pigeons, cut them in half, rub them with pepper and salt inside and out, and put into each half oz. of butter; lay them on the steak, and a piece of ham on each pigeon. Add the yolks of 4 eggs, and half fill the dish with stock; place a border of puff-paste round the edge of the dish, put on the cover, and ornament it in any way that may be preferred. Clean three of the feet, and place them in a hole made in the crust at the top: this shows what kind of pie it is. Glaze the crustthat is to say, brush it over with the yolk of an egg, and bake it in a well-heated oven for about 1¼ hour. When liked, a seasoning of pounded mace may be added.
TIME.-1¼ hour, or rather less.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Pigeons, Broiled: INGREDIENTS. -2 pigeons, 2 oz. of butter, pepper and salt to taste. AVERAGE COST, Is. 8d.
Take care that the pigeons are quite fresh, and carefully pluck, draw and wash them; split the backs, rub the birds over with butter, season them with pepper and salt, and broil them over a moderate fire for 1/4 hour or 20 minutes. Serve very hot, with either mushroom sauce or a good gravy. Pigeons may also be plainly boiled, and served with parsley and butter; they should be trussed like boiled fowls and take from 1/4 hour to 20 minutes to boil.
TIME.-To broil a pigeon, from 1/4 hour to 20 minutes; to boil one, the same time.
SEASONABLE from April to September, but in the greatest perfection from Midsummer to Michaelmas.
Two workable recipes sit here alongside the carving note: a raised-crust pigeon pie built on a bed of steak, and pigeons split and broiled. Both assume a bird far smaller and leaner than a chicken, and neither gives an oven temperature you can dial in.
- What bird to buyVictorian "pigeons" were young domestic birds, sold today as squab, roughly 12-16 oz each dressed. Wood pigeon, sold as breast fillets or whole in game season, is darker and leaner and will cook faster. Two squab feed two to three people in the pie, alongside the steak.
- Oven heatThe recipe says only "a well-heated oven" and gives no temperature. A hot oven, in the region of 400-425F, will set and lift the puff crust; if the pastry colours before the filling is done, reduce the heat or cover the top. The staging is a modern guess, not in the text.
- The stated baking timeThe instruction reads as an hour and a half in one place and "1 hour, or rather less" in the time line. Raw rump steak in 2-inch cubes plus halved pigeons under a sealed lid needs the longer end: count on 1 1/2 hours, and check that the filling has reached at least 165F at the centre.
- The egg yolksThe recipe says only "the yolks of 4 eggs", without saying whether they go in raw or hard-boiled, whole or beaten. Either reading is possible; whole yolks will set into soft nuggets in the gravy, hard-boiled ones hold their shape.
- Stock level and pastryThe recipe says to half fill the dish with stock. The steak and birds release liquid of their own, so a fuller dish risks boiling over; keep a vent in the crust even if you skip the feet.
- The feet in the crustPurely a serving convention, telling the table what was under the pastry when everything else was hidden. Omit without loss.
- Broiling times"Broil over a moderate fire" means a grill or coals, split birds skin side to the heat. Fifteen to twenty minutes suits a small farmed squab cooked through; wood pigeon breast is better taken to about 135F and rested, which takes far less time, as it turns dry and livery when cooked hard.
- Costs and seasonsFive shillings for the pie and 1s. 8d. for the broiled birds are Victorian prices and carry no modern meaning. The April-to-September window reflects wild and dovecote birds; farmed squab is available all year.
The pie is labelled an Epsom Grand-Stand recipe, tying it to the Derby and its grandstand catering. Pigeon pie was a natural fit: pairing the birds with rump steak stretched a few small carcasses into a substantial dish. Protruding feet as a signal of a pigeon pie appear in other nineteenth-century cookbooks as well as here. That a carving diagram sits beside the recipes may reflect how these books were used: readers seem to have been expected to be taught not only how to cook a bird but how to divide one at table, where a pigeon cut in two along the line shown served two and, cut three ways, could be made to serve a third person.