No. 2112

Wild Pigeon or Squabs Poupeton, Ancient Style

Poupeton de Pigeons Ramier ou de Ramereaux a l'Ancienne

Chop up half a pound of veal with half a pound of beef marrow and half a pound of fat pork; season with salt, pepper and nutmeg; pound all together, mixing in four ounces of soaked and well pressed bread-crumbs, two whole eggs, some chopped mushrooms fried in butter and chopped parsley. Lay a buttered flawn ring eight inches in diameter on a sheet of buttered paper; fill the bottom and sides with the forcemeat (No.81) and in the center lay a stew made of six wild pigeons prepared as explained below. Cover the top with more of the forcemeat, having it bomb-shaped, egg over and cook in a moderate oven. For the wild pigeon stew, truss the pigeons as for an entree (No.178); brown them in butter with escalops of uncooked sweetbreads, some ham or bacon cut in five-eighths squares and blanched mushrooms, also a garnished bunch of parsley (No.123). Dredge three tablespoonfuls of butter over the whole and let it attain a fine color; then moisten with white wine and stock (No.194a). When the birds are cooked suppress the parsley, reduce and thicken the sauce, adding the juice of a lemon; put it into a vessel to get cold and then cut the birds lengthwise in two, pare neatly and use for filling the inside of the poupeton.

Wild Squabs are roasted or broiled the same as tame squabs. See No.2018.

← No. 2111 Pheasant with Truffles—Larded Other Game No. 2113 Golden Plover or Grass Plover and Bustard Pl →

For the Modern Kitchen

A moulded forcemeat shell built in a ring, filled with a cold pigeon ragout and baked until set. It is straightforward once the sequence is clear, but the assembly depends entirely on the filling being cold and thick.

The hinge: chill the stewRanhofer says to put the finished ragout "into a vessel to get cold" for a reason. A warm or loose filling will melt the marrow in the forcemeat wall and the dome will slump in the oven. Reduce the sauce until it coats heavily, then chill it solid before building.
Flawn ringA flawn (flan) ring is a plain bottomless metal hoop, here 8 inches across, set on buttered paper on a baking sheet. A springform base with the ring removed, or an 8-inch cake ring, does the same job; the paper is what lets you slide the finished poupeton off.
Moderate ovenTake this as roughly 350F. Timing will depend on the depth of the dome; work to an internal temperature of 165F in the centre rather than the clock. The egg wash will colour well before the middle is set, so tent with foil if it darkens early.
Forcemeat No. 81The recipe first has you make a veal, marrow and pork farce, then refers to a numbered forcemeat elsewhere in the book. In practice the mixture described in the opening lines is what lines and caps the ring; pound it to a smooth paste in a food processor and keep it cold.
Beef marrowOrder marrow bones and scoop the marrow out, or ask for it loose. Half a pound is a good deal of bone. Soak the marrow in cold water to draw the blood, then dice it while still chilled so it stays in pieces rather than smearing.
SweetbreadsEven though they go into the pan raw, veal sweetbreads want the usual preparation first: several hours in cold water, a blanch, a cold refresh, then trimmed of membrane and pressed under a weight. Only then slice into escalops for browning.
The birdsSix wild pigeons means six European wood pigeons or, in North America, farmed squab of about 14-16 oz each. Some wild pigeons and doves in the United States are regulated game birds with seasons and bag limits, so check local rules; and the "wild pigeon" of nineteenth-century American markets no longer exists at all.
Bunch of parsley, No. 123A bouquet garni: parsley stems tied with thyme and bay, sometimes with a strip of bacon. It is lifted out before the sauce is reduced.
YieldEight inches of forcemeat plus six birds serves eight to ten as a course. It slices best after fifteen minutes' rest, in wedges.

A Little History

Poupeton is one of the deliberately old-fashioned words Charles Ranhofer kept alive in The Epicurean (1894), his enormous record of the food served at Delmonico's in New York. The term is generally traced to the same root as poupée, a doll or bundle, and describes a stew swaddled in a forcemeat casing and baked in a mould, an ancestor of the timbale and the pain of later French service; the tag a l'Ancienne tells the cook this is a survival, quoted rather than invented. The wild pigeon of the American market at the time Ranhofer was cooking was frequently the passenger pigeon, sold by the barrel in the 1870s and 1880s and effectively gone from commerce by the 1890s, which is part of why this dish reads as a document of a vanished larder. The wood pigeon of the French title, ramier, and its young, the ramereau, are still shot and eaten across Europe, and it is that bird, or farmed squab, that stands behind any modern attempt at the dish.