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Fricassee of Pigeons
Put your pieces of pigeon into a stew-pan in butter, and let it cook with the pigeons. Then add one carrot, two onions, two sprigs of parsley, a leaf of sage, five juniper berries, and a very little nutmeg. Stir it all for a few minutes, and then, and only then, add a half-cupful of water and Liebig, two rusks or dry biscuits in pieces, the juice of a lemon. Put it all on the side of the fire, cover the saucepan and let it cook gently for an hour and a half.
A dark, thickened braise rather than the pale cream fricassee the name usually suggests. Everything hinges on the order of operations: the aromatics go into the fat and are stirred dry before any liquid appears.
- "And then, and only then"The insistence is the point. Carrot, onion, herbs and berries are meant to sweat and lightly colour in the butter with the browned pigeon before liquid enters; adding water early stews them raw and flattens the flavour.
- LiebigLiebig's Extract of Meat, the dark beef extract sold in stoneware pots. A teaspoon of Bovril, or half a concentrated beef stock cube dissolved in the water, gives the same salty, savoury depth. The dish carries no other salt, so taste before adding more.
- Rusks or dry biscuitsThese are the thickener and the only one. Two dry rusks, zwieback, or plain hard biscuits (not sweet cookies) crumbled in will dissolve over the long cooking and bind the small amount of liquid into a sauce. Stale white bread, well dried in the oven, does the same job.
- The birdsEuropean wood pigeon is lean, dark and genuinely needs the full ninety minutes. Farmed squab from a butcher is much more tender and will be dry long before then; halve the time and check at forty minutes. Buy pigeon rather than shooting your own unless you know local law.
- Half a cupful of waterAbout four fluid ounces, very little liquid for a panful of birds, which is why the pan must be covered and kept barely simmering. "On the side of the fire" means the coolest part of the range; the lowest burner setting does the same. Add a splash more water if the pan threatens to catch.
- Juniper and sageFive berries for the panful as written; crush them lightly so they release. Use one fresh sage leaf, not a spoonful of dried, which turns musty over an hour and a half.
- LemonGoing in with the water and extract, the juice cuts the richness of the butter. It will taste sharp early on and settle by the end.
- YieldAssume one wood pigeon or squab per person, two for large appetites. Serve with boiled potatoes or bread to take up the small quantity of thick sauce.
The Belgian Cook-Book was assembled in England in 1915 from recipes given by Belgian refugees who had fled the German invasion, and sold in aid of relief funds — which explains its habit of frugality. Pigeon was ordinary meat in Belgium and northern France, where dovecotes had been a fixture of farm and manor for centuries and the birds were harvested young. The juniper is the regional signature: it runs through Ardennes cooking with game and pork, and appears here alongside the era's other staple, Liebig's Extract of Meat, industrially produced from South American cattle since the 1860s and by 1915 a fixture of European larders. That a refugee cook reached for a commercial beef extract to build depth in a wartime kitchen says as much about the period as the pigeons do.