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Braised Pigeons
Draw and wash three young pigeons, wipe them well and stuff them with breadcrumbs that have been well seasoned and moistened with warmed butter, and cook them in a braising pan. Boil some spinach, chop it well, and season with salt and pepper. Toast three slices of bread, lay them on a hot dish, spread the spinach over them, put a pigeon on each slice, and serve with a sauceboatful of gravy.
Oscar assumes a cook who knows what a braising pan does and needs no times or temperatures. The gaps worth filling are the bird itself, the braise, and the stuffing.
- "Young pigeons" means squabThese are domestic squab, four to five weeks old and killed before they fly, weighing roughly 12-16 oz each. Order them from a butcher or game supplier; wild pigeon is leaner, tougher and needs longer, moister cooking.
- Draw and washSquab now arrive fully dressed, so the drawing is done. Keep the livers and hearts if they come with the birds and add them to the gravy.
- The braising panA braisiere was a heavy lidded pan, in earlier practice with a recessed lid that held hot coals so the heat came from above and below; by this period braising was as often done on the range or in the oven. A heavy Dutch oven with a tight lid serves. Brown the birds in butter first, add an inch of stock and aromatics, cover, and finish in a low-moderate oven, around 325F -- the recipe itself gives no temperature.
- TimingSquab are small and cook fast. Forty to fifty minutes braised will give falling-tender meat and a good pan liquor; much beyond that and the breast dries out. Restaurants today often roast squab to a pink 135F, but this is a braise and the meat is meant to be soft throughout.
- The stuffingFresh breadcrumbs, not dried, moistened with melted butter and seasoned. Oscar leaves the seasoning to you: salt, pepper, chopped parsley, a little thyme and a grating of onion is in keeping. Stuff loosely, since the crumbs swell.
- The spinachBoil, drain, and press out the water hard before chopping, or it will soak the toast. A knob of butter beaten into the chopped spinach improves it and is implied rather than stated.
- The gravyMost likely the braising liquid itself, though Oscar does not say so and a separately made brown gravy would also fit the period. Skim the fat, reduce until it coats a spoon, and strain it into the sauceboat; no thickening is called for.
- YieldThree birds, three slices of toast, three servings, and no allowance for anything else on the plate.
Pigeon was a staple of nineteenth-century hotel cookery: cheap to raise, quick to cook, and small enough that each diner got a whole bird, which mattered in a dining room where a plated single portion signalled care. The Waldorf book carries a good many squab and pigeon recipes, and this is one of the plainer ones, built on the French pattern of setting a small bird on a fried or toasted crouton with a bed of puree or chopped greens beneath to catch the juices. The spinach-and-toast base recalls the medieval sop, the slice of bread that served as both plate and thickener long before it became a garnish. Pigeon faded from American home cooking through the twentieth century as chicken got cheap and pigeon lofts disappeared from farms; squab today comes from a handful of specialist producers.