No. 1966

Pigeons, Printaniere Style

Pigeons a la Printaniere

Prepare a garnishing composed of carrots and turnip balls formed with a half inch vegetablespoon, and some large green peas; have the carrots and turnips blanched separately, and the peas simply cooked in an untinned copper pan. Break the breastbones of three tender pigeons, remove these bones and fill the breasts with a dressing made of fresh fat pork, chicken livers cooked, chopped, and pounded with a little panada and two egg-yolks. Truss the pigeons with the legs thrust inside for entree (No. 178), and lay them in a saucepan lined with fat pork, roots, and minced onions; cook them almost dry, only having a very little stock (No. 194a), reduce it to a glaze, and repeat this several times, when finished; drain them off, untruss and cut each one in two lengthwise, then reconstruct them into their former shape. Dress them on a dish leaning them against a triangle-shaped fried bread support fastened on the center of the dish, and between each pigeon set a different garnishing namely; the carrots, turnips, and peas. Increase the quantity of stock with a little stock (No. 194a), strain, skim, and reduce it, thicken it with brown sauce (No. 414), and serve it in a sauce-boat.

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For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a larder of prepared stocks and sauces on hand; the dish is straightforward once you translate the cross-references and the vessels. Two things need attention before you start: the copper pan and the boned breasts.

The untinned copper panCooking peas in bare copper was a nineteenth-century trick to fix a bright green colour, and it works because copper salts leach into the food. Use any ordinary pan; the peas will be slightly duller and entirely wholesome. Modern copper pans are lined for this reason.
Vegetable spoonA half-inch "vegetable spoon" is a small melon baller. Carrot and turnip balls at that size need roughly 6-8 minutes of blanching for the carrots and 4-5 for the turnips, cooked separately so the turnip does not muddy the carrot.
PanadaThe binder in the forcemeat is a panada: bread crumb soaked in milk or stock and worked smooth, or a stiff flour-and-butter paste, cooled before use. Ranhofer gives no quantity; proportions vary, and something around a quarter of the weight of the livers and pork is one common rule of thumb.
Fresh fat porkUnsalted pork fatback, not bacon or salt pork. It appears twice here, chopped into the dressing and sliced to line the pan, where it bards the birds and keeps them from catching as the liquid reduces.
The glazing, which is the hinge"Cook them almost dry" means braising in very little stock, letting it reduce to a syrup, then adding more and repeating. Each round lacquers the skin. Rushing it with a panful of stock at once gives you boiled pigeon with pale skin, which is the one failure this dish cannot survive.
Boning and trussingOnly the breastbone comes out; the carcass stays whole so the bird can be stuffed and re-formed. Trussing "for entree" means the legs are pushed inside the body cavity to give a compact shape rather than left extended as for a roast.
Brown sauce No. 414Espagnole: brown roux moistened with brown stock and mirepoix, simmered and skimmed for hours. A well-reduced demi-glace is the practical stand-in for a small quantity of finishing sauce.
Birds and yield"Tender pigeons" here means squab, young birds of about 12-16 oz, sold fresh or frozen by game butchers. Three birds cut lengthwise give six halves, which serves six as a course or three as a main.
DonenessSquab breast is often served pink, but here the breast cavity holds a forcemeat of raw fat pork and egg yolks, which must be cooked through before serving. The legs also want longer than the breast. Braising time is governed by the repeated reduce-and-reglaze cycles the recipe calls for rather than by a fixed clock, though it will be well short of the hour an older bird would need.

A Little History

Printanière simply means "spring style" and in classical French kitchen usage signals a garnish of young vegetables cut small and cooked separately so each keeps its own colour and texture, exactly as Ranhofer sets carrots, turnips and peas in distinct heaps between the birds. Charles Ranhofer was chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the house repertoire of that restaurant, written for cooks who already had stocks, espagnole and forcemeats standing ready. Pigeon appears heavily in the book because squab was still an everyday market bird in America in the 1890s, raised commercially and cheap enough to fill a whole chapter; the domestic pigeon lost its place on the table over the following half-century as chicken production industrialised. The fried bread support in the centre of the platter belongs to a service style now vanished, in which the food was built upward on the dish and carved or portioned in the dining room.