No. 1962

Pigeons Garnished with Montglas Cases—Stuffed

Pigeons Farcis Garnis de Caisses Montglas

Fasten a wooden foundation on a dish, it to be one inch high and not too wide; cover with cooked paste (No. 131) or noodle paste (No. 142) decorated on the top with a piping in relief and having a wooden or tin triangle or conical-shaped support in the center, also covered with paste and bored on top so that a skewer can be inserted. Bone the breasts of three young, clean pigeons by splitting them lightly through the back, but leaving the legs and thighs attached to the bodies; season the inside meats and fill the breasts with baking liver forcemeat (No. 81) combined with a third as much raw forcemeat (No. 89), a few spoonfuls of cooked lean ham and as much cooked truffles, all to be well chopped; sew up the back, truss as for an entree (No. 178) with the legs thrust inside the body, bard over and wrap each one in a small buttered cloth, then cook in a good poeler stock. As soon as the pigeons are done, drain, unwrap and retighten the cloth more firmly; put them back into their stock to leave cool, then drain again and when unwrapped, wipe them carefully with a cloth. Now detach the breasts from the rump of each pigeon to cut into lengthwise slices, return them to their original position and then place the birds in a sautoir with a part of their stock reduced to a half-glaze warm them in the open oven basting frequently. Remove the pigeons to a small baking sheet, smooth the cut parts nicely and cover the breasts with a not too thick Mornay sauce (No. 504), so the form of the pigeons remain intact; place them for a moment in the hot oven to have the sauce adhere, then dress them at once in a triangle almost standing upright against the support; on top of this insert a small skewer garnished with truffles; surround the bottom of the dish with a chain of small china cases filled with montglas (No. 747), then covered with a layer of forcemeat and poached in a bain-marie; when serving this entree send also a sauce-boatful of the reduced pigeon stock thickened with a little sauce.

← No. 1961 Pigeons a la Valenciennes Pigeons & Squabs No. 1963 Pigeons, Huntress Style—Breasts →

For the Modern Kitchen

A full Ranhofer set piece: the birds are boned, stuffed, poached in a poêler stock, chilled under pressure, sliced, glazed and then stood upright against a decorated plinth. The eating part is straightforward; the architecture is what takes the day.

The hinge: press them coldCooking the pigeons wrapped in buttered cloth, then re-tightening the cloth and letting them cool in their own stock, is what sets the breasts firm enough to slice cleanly and re-assemble. Skip the chilling and the meat will shred when you cut it and nothing will hold its shape under the Mornay.
The socleThe wooden foundation and the tin cone are a display base, not food — a nineteenth-century socle masked in pastry so the birds can be stood almost vertical. Nobody eats it. A modern cook can serve the pigeons flat on a platter and lose nothing but the theatre.
Poêler stockPoêler stock -- To poêler is to cook in a covered pan on a bed of aromatic vegetables with butter and a little stock, closer to a butter-braise than a boil. Keep it at a bare simmer; the recipe specifies neither a temperature nor a time, and small young birds cook quickly.
Squab, not wood pigeonRanhofer's "young pigeons" are what we would call squab, young birds rather than mature ones, sold today by game butchers and some Asian markets; the recipe gives no age or weight. Older wild pigeon has darker, tougher meat and will not behave the same way in this treatment.
Barding fatBarding means wrapping the breast in a sheet of pork back fat, tied on, to keep it from drying. Thinly sliced fatback or unsmoked streaky bacon substitutes; smoked bacon will bully the delicate stuffing.
The forcemeatThe filling is a baking liver forcemeat cut with a third of plain raw forcemeat, plus chopped cooked ham and truffle — in practice a poultry-liver and veal or pork farce. Any well-seasoned liver-and-pork farce that sets firm when poached will do the job.
MontglasA montglas garnish is a fine salpicon of tongue, truffle, mushroom and foie gras bound in a reduced sauce. Here it fills small china cases, is capped with forcemeat and poached in a water bath — set the cases in a tin of hot water and poach gently until the forcemeat is just firm.
Mornay and the glazeThe Mornay must be thin enough to coat without blurring the outline of the bird, and the recipe's brief turn in a "hot oven" is only to set the sauce, not to brown it deeply; no temperature is given. Overcooked here the sauce breaks and slides off the sliced breast.
YieldThe recipe gives no yield: three stuffed pigeons plus the cases and sauce, which in a long dinner would have been one course among many. Treat it as three modern main portions.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894, after years in the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York across more than one spell there, and this entry shows the book at its most architectural — the dish is not merely cooked but built, on a masked wooden plinth with a decorative skewer, or h he top. That style of presentation is generally traced to the tradition of Carême's grosses pièces and their pastry socles, and by Ranhofer's day it survived mainly in restaurant and banquet cooking, where a dish had to be seen across a dining room before it was eaten. Pigeon was a natural subject: squab is small enough to serve one bird per person. The cross-references throughout — to paste No. 131, forcemeat No. 89, Mornay No. 504 — are how the book works, a professional system in which each preparation is made once and cited thereafter, and they are the clearest sign that these pages were written for a brigade rather than a household.