Home › Poultry and Game › Pigeon Pie
Pigeon Pie
Clean and truss three or four pigeons, rub outside with a mixture of pepper and salt; rub inside with a bit of butter, fill with a bread-and-butter stuffing, or mashed potatoes; sew up the slit, butter the sides of a tin basin or pudding dish, and line (the sides only) with pie paste, rolled to quarter of an inch thickness; lay the birds in; for three large tame pigeons, cut quarter of a pound of butter substitute and put it over them, strew over a large teaspoon of salt and a small teaspoon of pepper, with finely cut parsley; dredge one and onehalf teaspoons barley flour over; put in water to nearly fill the pie; lay skewers across the top, cover with a paste crust; cut a slit in the middle, ornament the edge with leaves, braids, or shells of paste, and put in a moderately hot or quick oven for one hour; when nearly done brush the top over with the yolk of an egg beaten little milk, and finish. The with pigeons for this pie may be cut in two or more pieces, if preferred . a
A raised-crust game pie of the older English type, built in a deep basin rather than a pie plate. Two details in the wording date it precisely: "butter substitute" and barley flour are wartime economy ingredients, and both can be read as plain butter and wheat flour today.
- Line the sides onlyThis is the instruction that makes the dish work. A bottom crust under an hour of near-boiling stock turns to paste; the pastry goes up the buttered sides of the basin and over the top, and the gravy sits directly on the dish. Do not be tempted to line the base.
- The skewersLaid across the rim, they bridge the birds and hold the lid clear of the filling so it can crisp and brown rather than steam. A pie funnel or an inverted eggcup in the centre does the same job. The slit in the middle is the steam vent and must stay open.
- Oven temperature"Moderately hot or quick" in books of this period is generally taken to mean somewhere in the region of 400F. Start there to set the pastry, and drop to 350F after twenty minutes if the crust is colouring faster than the birds are cooking.
- The birds"Tame pigeons" means domestic pigeon, sold today as squab, generally under a pound dressed. Wild pigeons and doves are game birds in many jurisdictions and may not be bought or taken out of season. Three birds feed four people modestly; four is safer.
- Cooking throughWhole birds stuffed with bread-and-butter stuffing need the stuffing itself to reach 165F, not just the meat. An hour at these temperatures usually gets there, but check with a probe pushed into the cavity. The recipe's own suggestion of cutting the birds in halves or quarters cooks far more evenly and is the better option.
- Butter substituteMargarine or a similar substitute. Use a quarter pound of butter and nothing is lost.
- Barley flourAnother substitution of the same kind. The recipe's one and a half teaspoons, dredged over the birds, thickens the liquid slightly as it cooks; barley flour thickens less than wheat and gives a faintly nutty result if you want the original character.
- The waterWater "to nearly fill" means the birds are essentially braised in the crust. Stock rather than water gives a better gravy, and stop short of the rim or it will boil out through the vent.
- The glazeYolk beaten with a little milk, brushed on for the last ten to fifteen minutes only. Applied at the start it scorches long before the pie is done.
Pigeon pie is one of the oldest surviving English meat pies, a direct descendant of the dovecote economy: manors and farms kept pigeon houses that were traditionally said to supply fresh meat through winter when little else was killed, and the squab, taken at about four weeks before it had flown, was the tender prize. The form here — birds laid whole in a deep dish, sides lined with paste, a lid vented in the middle and ornamented with pastry leaves — is the standard Victorian household version, carried into American cookbooks with little change. What dates this particular text is not the pie but the pantry: "butter substitute" and barley flour in place of wheat, substitutions often associated with wartime conservation but equally at home in the ordinary thrift cookery of the period. Either way, such economies suggest a household expected to learn thrift as part of learning to cook at all.