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Fricandeau of Pigeons
Singe and draw four pigeons, truss them as for roasting, remove the feet and pinions, lard the breasts, and stuff them with forcemeat. Place some thin slices of fat bacon in a stewpan, then a layer of veal, put in the pigeons, also a blade of beaten mace, a bunch of sweet herbs, a little salt and pepper, then cover the birds with some more veal and bacon. Prepare with the bones and trimmings one pint of gravy, pour it in with the pigeons, put the lid on the pan, and let the contents cook slowly for an hour. Take the pigeons out, skim and strain the gravy, then boil it till reduced to half its original quantity; put the pigeons in again and stand them over the fire for five minutes. Lay them on a hot dish, pour the sauce over, garnish with slices of lemon, and serve.
A braise dressed up as a fricandeau: the birds cook buried between layers of veal and bacon, which flavour the pot rather than the plate. Everything hinges on keeping the liquid at a bare tremble.
- The layers are a jacket, not a fillingThe veal slices and fat bacon above and below the pigeons are there to baste them and enrich the gravy. They come out of the pan spent; the veal can be chopped into a subsequent stock or discarded, and only the birds and the reduced sauce are served.
- Heat"Cook slowly" on a coal range means the liquid barely moves. On a modern burner use the lowest setting with the lid on, or set the covered pan in a 300F oven for the hour. A rolling simmer will squeeze the breasts dry well before the legs give in.
- BirdsSquab, sold at good butchers and by mail, is the same bird at four weeks. Figure 12-16 oz each dressed. Farmed squab arrives plucked and drawn, so the singeing and drawing are moot; you may still need to remove the wing tips (pinions) and truss.
- LardingThreading strips of pork fat through the breast with a larding needle compensates for the leanness of the meat. Bard instead if you have no needle: tie a thin sheet of caul fat or a slice of fatback over each breast.
- ForcemeatUnspecified here; the cook is presumably expected to have one to hand. A simple one: 8 oz ground veal or pork, a panade of bread soaked in cream, an egg, chopped shallot, salt and pepper, plus the chopped pigeon livers. Roughly 2 oz per bird.
- MaceMace is the lacy aril that covers the nutmeg; a blade is a piece of it, sold whole in some spice shops. Roughly 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of ground mace stands in for a blade; add it late, since ground mace loses its perfume in a long braise.
- Sweet herbsA period bouquet: parsley stalks, thyme, a bay leaf, and often marjoram, tied with string so it can be pulled out before the sauce is reduced.
- The gravyOne pint of stock made from the pigeon bones and trimmings, reduced by half after skimming, is the whole sauce. It should coat a spoon lightly. The recipe salts the pot lightly at the start; hold back any further seasoning until after reduction, or the salt from the bacon will concentrate past the point of rescue.
- YieldFour pigeons, one per person, as a main course with the sauce and lemon. The final five minutes back in the pan is to reheat the birds and glaze them, not to cook them further.
A fricandeau is properly a larded cushion of veal, braised and glazed with its own reduced cooking liquor, and the name belongs to the French kitchen. Applying it to pigeons is a borrowing of method rather than substance: the larding needle, the veal-and-bacon lining, the gravy boiled down to a glaze. Pigeon was ordinary meat in America well into Oscar Tschirky's day, and it appears throughout hotel cookery of the 1890s in far more guises than modern menus suggest. The wild passenger pigeon, netted by the barrel earlier in the century, was effectively gone by the time this book appeared in 1896.