No. 1970

Pigeons with Olives-Breasts

Filets de Pigeons aux Olives

This entree is dressed in the hollow of a cooked paste border (No. 10) cut into points and open-worked with a pastry cutter. The band intended for making the border should be cut out on a floured table as soon as it has been rolled; fasten it on a dish a quarter of an inch from the inside edge, spreading it slightly; egg it over with a brush and dry for a few hours. After this paste is dried, lay inside of it a wooden foundation covered with more of the same paste rolled out thin. Besides this, prepare a little raw chicken forcemeat (No. 89) mixed with an equal quantity of baked liver forcemeat (No. 80) pounded and passed through a tammy. Poach this forcemeat in a pyramidical mold rounded and smooth an inch and a half high, placed in a bain-marie; unmold this pyramid in the center of the dish, for it is intended to uphold the entree. Select a few dozen of the finest and largest Spanish olives procurable; stone and blanch them to stuff with foies-gras forcemeat (No. 78). Singe six young but large pigeons quite fleshy, fill the breasts with a spoonful of grated fat pork and fresh chopped truffle peelings; truss and cover with fat pork, then cook in some good stock; as soon as done remove to untruss; detach the breasts from the back, remove the two fillets from both breasts, suppress the skin, pare and take off the minions. Lay the six fillets from the left side in a small sautoir, mask them with a little espagnole sauce (No. 414) reduced with the pigeon stock and Madeira; cover and keep them hot. Pare the other six fillets, mask them also on the inside with a layer of baking forcemeat thickened with a little raw forcemeat, smooth well, and range these fillets in another small sautoir having a little half-glaze on the bottom to heat the forcemeat; warm it while glazing over with a brush. At the last moment unmold the pyramid, lay the fillets around alternating them, and all turned in the same direction standing almost upright. Dress a part of the olives in the center space formed by the circle on top of the pyramid, and range the others around the open-worked border. Cover the fillets lightly with the sauce, also the garnishings and serve more separately.

← No. 1969 Pigeons with Green Peas Pigeons & Squabs No. 1971 Pullet a la Arco Valley →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a full Delmonico's construction piece: a pastry border, a poached forcemeat pyramid, twelve pigeon fillets and stuffed olives, all assembled at the last minute. Nothing about it is quick, but the individual steps are straightforward once the cross-references are decoded.

The hingeEverything stands or falls on the poached forcemeat pyramid. It must be firm enough to hold the fillets upright, so poach it gently in the bain-marie until set through; the recipe gives no temperature. A pyramid poached too hot will be spongy and collapse under the meat.
The numbered cross-referencesRanhofer's numbers point elsewhere in The Epicurean: No. 10 is a paste border, No. 89 a raw chicken forcemeat, No. 80 a baked liver forcemeat, No. 78 a foie gras forcemeat, No. 414 espagnole. Without those pages this reads as an assembly diagram rather than a recipe.
Pigeon size"Six young but large pigeons" means squab, and six birds give the twelve breast fillets the design needs. Modern squab is often smaller than what Ranhofer had in mind; buy extra birds if yours are small, since the whole design depends on twelve fillets of even length.
MinionsThe minion (French filet mignon of the bird) is the small inner tenderloin lying under each breast fillet. Ranhofer has it taken off and does not say why; save the minions for the forcemeat rather than discarding them.
Fat pork and barding"Grated fat pork" is chilled fatback pushed through a coarse grater; the covering is a barding sheet. Fatback is the correct product, not bacon, which would carry smoke and cure into a delicate braise. The recipe cooks the birds through in stock and says only "as soon as done"; squab is often served pink today, but that is a preference, not a safe internal temperature for poultry.
TammyA tammy is a fine woolen straining cloth, worked with two people twisting the ends. A drum sieve or the fine plate of a food mill, followed by a pass through a chinois, gives the same texture with less effort.
Half-glazeHalf-glaze is the book's demi-glace, an espagnole-based sauce reduced down, used here as a shallow film in the sautoir so the forcemeat-lined fillets heat gently from below without frying. Keep the pan barely at a simmer or the forcemeat cracks off.
The wooden foundationA shaped wooden block, covered over with thin paste, raising the centerpiece on the dish. It is structural, not edible; a modern cook would use an inverted ramekin or a cut round of dense bread.
YieldTwelve fillets serve six as a formal entree in the period sense, meaning one course among many. As a main course today, count on four.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) records that restaurant's repertoire at its most elaborate, with well over a thousand numbered recipes cross-referencing one another like a technical manual. Pigeon was a staple of nineteenth-century American tables, both wild and raised in domestic dovecotes, and squab remained an expensive luxury long after passenger pigeon markets collapsed. The socle-and-border presentation here belongs squarely to the grand service of the period: the pastry ring, the poached forcemeat pedestal and the fillets standing upright all exist to make a small quantity of meat read as architecture across a long banquet table. The dish's name takes its cue from the garnish of Spanish olives stuffed with foie gras forcemeat rather than from anything in the cooking of the bird itself.