No. 1969

Pigeons with Green Peas

Pigeons aux Petits Pois

Truss six pigeons as for an entree (No. 178), returning the livers to their original place. Melt some chopped fat pork in a saucepan, add to it a quarter of a pound of small five-eighths inch squares of bacon and fry for a few moments, then remove them with a skimmer. Put the pigeons into this saucepan with five or six small onions for each bird, brown slightly and slowly, then add one and a half quarts of green peas, a bunch of parsley and the bacon. Two minutes later moisten with two gills of stock (No. 194a), boil for five minutes and withdraw the saucepan to a slower fire, push into the oven, and finish cooking the peas and pigeons, then drain out the birds, untruss and dress them on a dish; thicken the peas with kneaded butter (No. 579), and place them around the pigeons.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is a straightforward braise: the birds and the peas cook together in one pan, and the peas are meant to end up soft and buttery rather than bright and crisp. A few of his terms and quantities need translating.

The birds"Pigeon" here means young domestic squab, roughly 12-16 oz each, not wild rock dove. Six birds serve six as a main course. Squab is often sold frozen, and the giblets may not be included; if they are not, the instruction to return the livers to their place has to be skipped, or chicken livers substituted.
Gills and quartsTwo gills is one cup of stock, which is all the liquid the dish gets. A quart and a half of shelled green peas is about 2 lb shelled, which takes roughly 5 to 6 lb of peas in the pod; frozen peas work but should go in much later, since they need only a few minutes.
Small onionsFive or six per bird means thirty to thirty-six pearl or small boiling onions, peeled and left whole. They braise down with the peas and are part of the garnish, not a background flavouring.
Fat pork and baconThe rendering fat should be unsmoked salt pork or fatback. The quarter pound of bacon cut in five-eighths-inch squares is lardons; modern streaky bacon is thinner and more heavily smoked, so pancetta or slab bacon is closer to what Ranhofer had.
Oven heat"A slower fire, push into the oven" indicates gentle heat rather than a hot oven; a moderate oven of around 325-350F is a reasonable modern reading, though Ranhofer gives no temperature. He also gives no time: cook until the peas and birds are both done, which will be some little while at that heat.
Kneaded butterHis No. 579 is beurre manié, butter and flour worked cold to a paste (commonly in roughly equal parts). Whisk it into the simmering pea liquid in small pieces, off a hard boil; about a tablespoon each of butter and flour will bind the cup of stock plus the pea juices.
Expect soft peasPeas cooked this long lose their colour and go olive-drab. That is what this style of braise produces, not a fault. If you want the peas green, they cannot also be the braising vegetable.
SeasoningNo salt is specified. The salt pork, bacon and reduced stock will contribute a good deal of it; taste before thickening and correct at that point.

A Little History

This is Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the vast working record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the entry is essentially the French classic pigeons aux petits pois set down in professional shorthand, complete with cross-references to trussing methods, stocks and thickenings elsewhere in the book. Peas braised with bacon lardons and small onions is a long-established French preparation, and the pairing suits the season: young squab and the first shelled peas both come in late spring. Pigeon was a familiar meat in nineteenth-century America, raised in backyard cotes and sold in city markets, and Ranhofer gives it a section of its own; it is now an expensive bird rather than a cheap one.