No. 2377

Pigeon Tart a la Britannia

Tarte de Pigeons a la Britannia

Singe three clean pigeons; divide each one in two parts, beat, remove the surplus bones without boning them, then season with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. Cover the bottom of a pie dish (Fig. 183) with thin slices of bacon, bestrew with a spoonful of onion, and one of mushrooms both chopped separately, range the halved pigeons in the dish intermingled with more slices of bacon, and a few hard-boiled eggs cut in two; bring it to a dome. Pour a few spoonfuls of good clear gravy (No. 404) into the bottom of the dish; cover with a layer of half paste the same as for the beef pie No. 2369. Decorate the summit, egg over, and cook for an hour and a quarter in a slack oven, covering with paper should it threaten to burn.

← No. 2376 Oyster Tart or Pie, Smith Style Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2378 Loin of Pork Tart or Pie—English Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer wrote for a professional brigade with a numbered cross-reference system, so this entry assumes you already have his gravy and his pastry. Here is what the shorthand means in a domestic kitchen.

The birds"Pigeons" here probably means young domestic birds rather than wild ones, though Ranhofer also uses "squab" as a term of its own. Three birds give six halves. Boneless duck breast or quartered poussin are the usual stand-ins if squab is hard to source.
Singeing and boningSingeing burns off the pinfeathers and down left after plucking; a gas flame or a kitchen torch does it in seconds. "Remove the surplus bones without boning them" means taking out the backbone, rib cage and wing tips while leaving the leg and breast structure intact, so the halves hold their shape under the crust.
"Beat"Flatten the halves with the side of a cleaver or a mallet, just enough to even the thickness. This is what lets them pack into a dome rather than sit in a jumble.
Half pasteRanhofer's "half paste" (demi-feuilletage) is a lighter puff paste than full feuilletage, made with less butter or fewer turns; the recipe here does not give a ratio, and the paste is that of the beef pie No. 2369. All-butter store-bought puff pastry is a fair substitute; the point is a crust sturdy enough to sit over a domed filling for well over an hour.
Slack ovenA slack oven is usually reckoned at somewhere around 275-325F. Something in that range suits here: the pastry needs the full hour and a quarter to dry through while the birds cook gently in their own steam. The paper cover he mentions is a shield against over-browning, not a lid.
The gravyHis No. 404 is the clear gravy the recipe calls for; look it up in his numbering rather than guessing at it. Only a few spoonfuls, as he says; the bacon and the birds throw off a good deal of liquid and a flooded pie will lift its crust.
Hard-boiled eggsHalved eggs go in cold and are there for texture and to fill the gaps under the dome. They toughen slightly during the long bake, which is to be expected in a meat pie of this kind.
Egg wash and vent"Egg over" means brushed with beaten egg after the decoration is applied. Cut a vent at the summit or set a small funnel in it; steam trapped under a domed lid can split the seam.
DonenessSquab is normally served pink, but in a pie of this construction the birds cook through. Look for 165F at the thickest part of a breast and a crust that sounds hollow. Rest twenty minutes before cutting so the juices settle.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete working record of that restaurant's repertoire, some 3,500 numbered recipes cross-referenced to one another. The "a la Britannia" tag marks this out as one of the English pies he grouped together in this section, near the oyster tart and the loin of pork tart: bacon-lined, egg-studded meat pies baked under a lid in a pie dish. Pigeon was still a common market bird in both countries at the time, cheap enough to be everyday and small enough that the halves fit neatly under a crust; the arrangement of birds, bacon and halved hard-boiled eggs is the classic English pigeon pie, which Ranhofer has simply written down in French kitchen language.