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Potted Pigeons
Place upright in a stewpan six pigeons that have been cleaned, stuffed with simple dressing, and trussed. Cut a carrot and an onion into dice also chop a little parsley to throw over them. Pour over enough stock or boiling water to cover. Cover the pot closely. Let them simmer from two to three hours until tender, adding boiling water or stock when necessary. Make a sauce with one-quarter cup each butter and flour cooked together and stock remaining in pan; there should be two cups. Serve each pigeon on a thin piece of moistened toast, pour gravy over all. This dish is excellent when cooked in a casserole in the oven.
A straightforward braise that assumes a tough, mature bird and a cook with all afternoon. The single biggest adjustment is time: what the original birds needed would reduce today's farmed squab to threads.
- The birds are not the same"Pigeon" here usually meant an older bird, often wild-shot or from a domestic loft, with worked muscle and little fat. Farmed squab sold today is slaughtered at around four weeks, before it has flown, and is tender throughout.
- Cut the time hardTwo to three hours suits a mature bird. Squab of about 12-16 oz is braised through in 35-45 minutes at a bare simmer; test by twisting a leg, which should loosen at the joint. If you are working with older birds or wood pigeon, the original range is realistic.
- "Simple dressing"Presumably a plain bread stuffing: soft breadcrumbs, melted butter, salt, pepper, a little chopped onion and parsley, bound loosely. Pack it lightly, as it swells. Stuffed birds need the stuffing to reach 165F, so check it rather than the meat alone.
- "Casserole" in 1900"Casserole" at this date generally meant a lidded earthenware or enamelled pot rather than a baked dish of layered food, though the word was also used for moulded dishes of rice or potato. Oven-braising in one works well at 325F, with the lid on and the liquid barely trembling.
- Standing them uprightSitting the trussed birds on their bottoms in a narrow, deep pan holds the stuffing in place and keeps them from sprawling. A pan just wide enough to hold six snugly is worth more than a large one.
- The sauceA quarter cup each of butter and flour is about 4 tablespoons of each, a heavy roux for two cups of liquid. It will be thick enough to coat; slacken with more stock if you want it pourable. Cook the flour and butter together two or three minutes before adding liquid, and strain out the carrot and onion if you want it smooth.
- The toast"moistened" most likely means brushed or dipped in the braising liquid rather than soaked. Cut it to the footprint of the bird so it soaks up gravy without going to paste.
- YieldSix birds, one per person, as a main course.
Potting and stewing were the standard treatment for pigeon in Anglo-American cookery well into the twentieth century, and the Butterick book, published for a home-sewing readership keeping a middle-class table, treats it as ordinary poultry rather than a luxury. Pigeons were comparatively cheap and widely available, and because a full-grown bird is lean and sinewy, long moist cooking under a tight lid was the sensible route. Serving meat on toast is older still, related to the earlier sop, where bread beneath the meat caught juices that would otherwise be lost. The book's closing note that the dish is "excellent when cooked in a casserole in the oven" may reflect the spread of ranges with usable ovens alongside the all-day stovetop pot. The economics have since reversed entirely: squab is now a specialty item priced well above chicken.