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Epigrammes of Pigeons
Cut the fillets off four pigeons and remove the skin and minion fillets. Beat the minion fillets lightly, and put them on the other fillets. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over them, arrange them on the bottom of a flat stewpan with some clarified butter, and cover over with a sheet of buttered paper. Cut the meat off the legs of the pigeons, and with that, the trimmings of the fillets and an equal quantity of poultry flesh, prepare some quenelle forcemeat; take up six tablespoonfuls of it, put them on a floured table, and shape each spoonful of it like the fillets of the pigeons. Place them side by side in a buttered sautepan, stand it in the bain-marie and poach them; when done, drain, and leave till cool. Dip the forcemeat fillets in beaten eggs and roll them in breadcrumbs seasoned with sweet herbs. Fry the fillets of pigeons, and at the same time the fillets of forcemeat, in a flat stewpan with a piece of butter. When nicely browned on both sides, drain the fat off the fillets, pour over two tablespoonfuls of melted glaze and one tablespoonful of Madeira, boil and move the pan off the fire. Put the fillets on a hot dish in a circle, alternating them with the fillets of forcemeat, fill the center with a puree of vegetables or chestnuts, pour a little rich, brown gravy over them and serve with a sauceboatful of the same.
Pigeons, Financiere Style Put four pigeons, cleaned and trussed, into a stewpan with some thin slices of fat bacon on the top, and chicken broth to their height; put a sheet of buttered paper over them, cover the pan and cook slowly till tender. Prepare a garnishing of truffles, mushrooms, cockscombs and some chicken quenelles, mixed in financiere sauce. Fry a block of bread three inches high, and narrower at the top than at the bottom. Drain the pigeons, and rest them against it, put some of the garnishing around the dish, and some piled up between the birds. Place a larded and glazed sweetbread on top of the bread. Pour a small quantity of financiere sauce over the pigeons, and serve with some more in a sauceboat.
Two related pigeon dishes run together on this page: the epigrammes proper, and a second recipe in the Financière style. Both assume a brigade kitchen with stock, glaze and forcemeat already on hand, so the work is mostly in the preparation you do before you start.
- What an epigramme isIn classical service an epigramme pairs contrasting pieces or preparations from the same animal, served together — here the sautéed breast fillets alternated with breaded, fried forcemeat shaped to match them. The alternation of the two textures is the point, so the forcemeat fillets must be shaped and sized like the real ones.
- Pigeon means squabBuy farmed squab, four birds of about 1 lb each; the fillets from four birds will serve four as a course, not more. Pigeon sold at retail today is farmed squab, and the "pigeons" of a hotel kitchen of this period would most likely have been young domestic birds rather than street pigeons.
- Minion filletsThe filet mignon is the small strip of tender lying against the underside of each breast. Peel it away, flatten it lightly with the side of a knife, and lay it back on the larger fillet so the two cook as one piece.
- Glaze"Melted glaze" is glace de viande — brown stock reduced to a syrup that sets rubbery when cold. Two tablespoons of commercial demi-glace concentrate, or your own heavily reduced stock, does the same job. Do not substitute unreduced broth; the pan sauce will not coat.
- Buttered paperA sheet of buttered paper laid directly over the meat. It keeps the surface from drying while the fillets sit in the clarified butter before frying, and it does the same duty over the whole birds in the second recipe.
- Poaching the forcemeatThe quenelle fillets are set in a buttered pan, stood in a bain-marie and poached gently — water at a bare tremble, around 175F, never boiling, or the forcemeat swells and breaks. They must be cold and firm before they are egged and crumbed, so make them well ahead.
- Doneness of the breastsSquab breast is dark meat and is normally taken to medium — a couple of minutes a side in foaming butter. The recipe's browning on both sides is the whole cooking time; carrying it further gives you liver-flavored leather.
- Financière garnishCockscombs are effectively unobtainable now and can simply be left out. Truffles, cultivated mushrooms, chicken quenelles and a larded veal sweetbread carry the dish; financière sauce is a Madeira-scented demi-glace, and the fried bread block is a structural plinth, not something anyone is expected to eat.
- SequenceWork backwards: forcemeat and quenelles first, then crumb them, then fry the pigeon fillets and the crumbed fillets together at the last minute. Everything else — purée of chestnut or vegetable for the center, brown gravy for the sauceboat — should be hot and waiting.
Oscar Tschirky's book records the Waldorf's kitchen at the height of the American gilded-age hotel, when the working vocabulary of a New York chef was French and the printed English barely bothered to translate it — epigramme, quenelle, bain-marie, financière all stand untranslated here. Squab was ordinary luxury food in that era: small, quick-cooking, farmed in quantity for the city trade, and prized because a young bird's breast is tender enough to be treated like a cutlet. The Financière garnish — truffles, mushrooms, cockscombs, quenelles bound in a Madeira sauce — is one of the standard classical garnitures of nineteenth-century French practice; its name is usually explained as a nod to the expense of the ingredients. The trick of doubling a small cut with a matching piece of forcemeat, so that four birds yield a plated circle of eight fillets alternating with six of forcemeat, tells you as much about the economics of hotel cooking as about its taste.