No. 2006

Squabs a la Briand

Pigeonneaux a la Briand

Soak bread-crumbs in a little broth; press it to extract well the moisture, then lay it in a bowl with a quarter as much good butter, a few egg-yolks and one whole egg; work this preparation well, seasoning with salt, pepper, parsley and onions chopped and blanched; use this for filling the squabs, then truss them for an entree (No. 178) and run them on the spit to roast, being careful to baste over occasionally with butter; untie them, remove the larding pork covering the breasts and lay them on a bed of sauted tomatoes (No. 2841). Serve a brown sauce (No. 414) separately into which mix Worcestershire sauce, meat glaze (No. 402), chopped parsley and tarragon vinegar.

← No. 2005 Pullets' Legs with New Carrots Pigeons & Squabs No. 2007 Squabs Crapaudine—Broiled →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade with a spit, a larder of barding pork and a numbered sauce book at hand. The dish itself is simple: a bread-and-egg forcemeat, a fast roast, tomatoes under, brown sauce alongside.

Quantities are left to the cookThe only ratio given is butter at a quarter the volume of the squeezed bread. For four squabs, roughly 2 cups soaked and pressed crumbs, about 1/2 cup butter, three yolks and one whole egg makes a forcemeat that holds together without being dense. Stuff loosely; it swells.
Spit to ovenLacking a spit, roast hot, breast up, basting with butter every few minutes; 425-450F approximates the spit. An unstuffed squab of 12-16 oz takes roughly 20-25 minutes, and a stuffed one longer, so go by temperature rather than the clock. The high heat is the point, as a slow oven dries the breast before the legs are done.
Larding pork on the breastThis is barding, not larding: thin sheets of fatback tied over the breasts to shield them, removed before serving. Thinly sliced unsmoked fatback or fresh pork belly does the job; blanched sliced bacon works but leaves a cured flavour Ranhofer did not intend.
Stuffed birds and donenessSquab is traditionally served pink at the breast, but a bread-and-egg stuffing packed into the cavity will not reach a safe temperature at that point. If you are stuffing the birds as written, cook until the centre of the forcemeat reaches 165F, which will bring the breast to well done. One way round it is to cook the forcemeat separately in a buttered dish.
The onions and parsleyBlanching the chopped onion before it goes into the raw forcemeat is not optional garnish work. It takes the harshness out and, more practically, guarantees the onion is soft in a mixture that only cooks for twenty minutes.
Trussing "for an entree"Ranhofer refers the cook to his own trussing instructions at No. 178; the aim of an entree truss is a compact bird that holds its shape on the platter. Two turns of butcher's twine over the legs and around the tail achieves much the same thing.
The sauce, unpackedA demi-glace or good reduced brown sauce, sharpened with Worcestershire, enriched with a spoonful of meat glaze, then finished off the heat with chopped parsley and a splash of tarragon vinegar. Add the vinegar last and taste; it should read as a lift, not as sourness.
The tomato bedWhatever the detail of his No. 2841, the tomatoes want to be cooked down hard enough that they no longer weep. Watery tomatoes will thin the brown sauce on the plate.
YieldOne squab per person as a main course, half a bird if it follows a substantial fish or entree.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's account of thirty-odd years running the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and its pigeon chapter reflects a period when squab was a standard luxury bird on American menus rather than a specialty order. Domestic pigeons were raised in lofts for the table across the Northeast, and squab, meaning a young bird taken before it flies, was prized precisely because the flesh stayed tender and dark. Ranhofer names dishes throughout the book after patrons, colleagues and public figures, and "a la Briand" belongs to that habit, though the book gives no clue as to who was meant. The construction is thoroughly Second Empire French: barded and spit-roasted, set on a vegetable bed, sauced separately with a demi-glace. The Worcestershire may read as the anglophone note, though the seasoning was familiar in French kitchens as well.