No. 1965

Potted Pigeons

Ragout de Pigeons au Four

After cleaning and singeing six pigeons, cut them up into four pieces; lay three ounces of butter in a saucepan with six ounces of bacon cut in quarter inch squares; when this begins to brown put in four ounces of onions cut in slices. Range the pigeons in an earthen pot or deep dish with a bed of the bacon on the bottom, the pigeons on top, and more bacon over; add salt, pepper, and sprigs of thyme; moisten with thin brown sauce (No. 414), placing here and there a few pieces of pilot cracker dipped in water. Boil and then let simmer or push in the oven until thoroughly done, and serve in the same crock they have been cooked in.

← No. 1964 Pigeons, Monarch Style—Smothered Pigeons & Squabs No. 1966 Pigeons, Printaniere Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

A braise in a covered earthenware pot, built on bacon fat and thickened partly by soaked ship's biscuit. The chief decision is what bird you are actually cooking, because that governs the timing entirely.

The bird decides the timeFarmed squab (about 1 lb, under a month old) is tender and needs roughly 40-50 minutes in the pot; wild pigeon of unknown age is muscular and may want 1.5 to 2 hours before it gives up. Ranhofer's "until thoroughly done" assumes the cook can tell the difference by feel. Six pigeons cut in quarters serves six as a main course.
Oven heat"Push in the oven" after a boil implies no more than a slow to moderate heat; Ranhofer gives no temperature, but somewhere around 300-325F, covered, will hold it there. The dish is already at a simmer when it goes in and should only murmur, not bubble.
Thin brown sauce, No. 414Ranhofer's brown sauces rest on a long-cooked espagnole, and a "thin" version would be that sauce let down with stock; worth checking No. 414 rather than assuming. A good unthickened brown poultry or veal stock does the same job here. The recipe says only "moisten", so add enough to come partway up the birds, since the crackers and reduction supply body.
Pilot crackerA hard, barely salted ship's biscuit, closer to modern hardtack or a plain water cracker than to a saltine. Dipped in water and tucked between the birds, the pieces dissolve into the sauce and thicken it. Unsalted matzo broken into shards is the nearest common substitute; avoid anything salted or buttered.
Salt with restraintSix ounces of bacon plus a reduced brown sauce carries a great deal of salt on its own. Season the birds lightly and correct at the end.
The vesselAn earthen pot or deep dish here means a casserole or Dutch oven that can go from stovetop to oven and to the table; the recipe insists on serving in the same crock, though it does not actually specify a cover. Covering tightly, with foil if there is no lid, keeps the breasts from drying over a braise of this length.
Cutting up the birdsQuartering means two breast-and-wing pieces and two leg pieces per bird. Save the backs and necks for the stock if you are making your own brown sauce.
BaconBacon of this period was generally fattier and more heavily smoked than most supermarket bacon, though practice varied a good deal. Slab bacon or unsmoked pancetta cut into quarter-inch lardons gives the rendered fat the recipe depends on.

A Little History

Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the house repertoire written out in full, with a long run of recipes given over to pigeons and squabs. Domestic pigeon lofts supplied American cities well into the twentieth century, and squab remained a standard restaurant bird long after wild pigeon shooting declined. The dish is a plain braise in the French manner, au four meaning simply "in the oven": bacon, onion, thyme and brown sauce in an earthen pot. The pilot cracker looks like the American touch, a ship's biscuit pressed into service as a thickener in the way older European cooks used a slice of bread.