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Fried Pigeon Cutlets
Remove the wing-bones from four pigeons and tuck the leg-bones inside. Cut them in halves, sprinkle over salt and pepper, put them in a sautepan with a little butter, and fry them. When done press them between two plates with a weight on top till cold. Dip them first in butter and then in breadcrumbs and broil over a good fire to color them. Place them in a circle on a dish, fill the cavity in the center either with string beans, asparagus, peas, sliced mushrooms or with a macedoine of various vegetables. Pigeons, Duchess Clean the pigeons, cut them into quarters, pour boiling water over the claws, and when sufficiently soaked trim off the skin and nails. Sprinkle over them a little black pepper and allspice, rubbing it in slightly with the hand; lay them in a basin, pour some red wine over them, cover and leave them for several hours or over night. Then put them with the wine into a stewpan, pour in enough brown stock to cover, and boil them for an hour over a slow fire. When well cooked drain and pound their livers in a mortar. Boil the cooking stock quickly till reduced to half its original quantity, then mix with it the pounded livers and one tablespoonful of desiccated cocoanut. Arrange the wings and claws of the birds together to form a center piece for the dish, putting a piece of watercress in each claw. Put it in the middle of a hot dish, lay the quarters of birds round it, putting between each quarter a small roll of fried bacon, pour round the thickened gravy, garnish the edge of the dish with a fringe of watercress, on which lay quarters of lemon, and serve.
Two pigeon dishes run together on one page, both built on the assumption that a kitchen keeps whole young birds and a stockpot going. Squab is the practical substitute, and the hinge in the first recipe is the pressing: cold, weighted birds are what makes the halves flat enough to crumb and broil evenly.
- Pigeon means squabThese are young domestic pigeons, sold today as squab, usually 12-16 oz dressed. Four of them serve four as a first course or two to three as a main. Wild birds are a poor substitute here, being older and tougher, and where they may be taken at all is a matter of local game law.
- The wing and leg bonesRemoving the wing bones and tucking the drumstick bones inside makes a compact half-bird that sits flat. Cut down either side of the breastbone after the wings come off and you have your two halves.
- Pressing is not optionalWeighted between two plates until fully cold, the halves firm up and set flat. Warm birds crumbed straight from the pan will curl under the broiler and the coating will slide. Refrigerate them under the weight for an hour or more.
- "Dip in butter"Melted butter, not cold, and then straight into fine dry crumbs. Some cooks of the period used beaten egg here instead; butter gives a lighter, patchier crust that browns fast, which is all this stage is for since the meat is already cooked.
- Broil over a good fireA charcoal grill or a broiler element at full heat, close in. Two to three minutes a side is enough to color the crumbs. Anything longer dries out breast meat that has already been fried once.
- MacedoineA mixture of vegetables cut in small even dice, cooked separately and combined so the colors stay distinct. Dressed with butter, it fills the ring of cutlets.
- Pigeons, Duchess: the marinadeSeveral hours or overnight in red wine belongs in the refrigerator, not on a counter. A dry red, enough to cover, with the pepper and allspice rubbed in first.
- The clawsScalding and peeling the feet to use as a garnish turns up in cookery of this period and is now more trouble than it is worth. Skip the centerpiece and simply arrange the quarters and bacon rolls in a ring.
- Liver and coconutThe pounded livers thicken and enrich the reduced stock; add them off the boil and do not let the sauce return to a hard simmer or it will go grainy. The tablespoon of desiccated coconut is unsweetened, and reads as a faint sweet spice note rather than anything tropical.
- An hour over a slow fireSquab quarters covered in stock will be tender in 35-45 minutes at a bare simmer. The longer time may suit older, tougher birds; check with a fork and pull them when the leg meat gives.
Oscar Tschirky, maître d'hôtel at the Waldorf and then the Waldorf-Astoria, published his Cook Book in 1896, and its game chapters record how central pigeon was to American restaurant cooking before broiler chickens existed. Squab was raised commercially in quantity, arrived small and tender, and suited exactly the kind of composed, ringed, garnished service that hotel dining rooms of the 1890s were built around. "Cutlets" here is a shape rather than a cut: boned, pressed, crumbed and browned, the halves imitate the outline of a lamb or veal cutlet, a common trick of the period applied to everything from salmon to chicken to lobster. The "Duchess" title follows the era's habit of attaching aristocratic names to garnished preparations without any documented connection to a particular person, and the tablespoon of desiccated coconut in a red wine and liver sauce may perhaps be read as a trace of the Anglo-Indian seasoning often said to have run through nineteenth-century grand-hotel cookery, though the connection is speculative.