No. 2387

Timbale of Squabs a la Berchoux

Timbale de Pigeonneaux a la Berchoux

Draw, singe and clean six squabs, then cut them each in four. Line a two-quart buttered timbale mold with foundation or short paste (No. 135); coat it over with a layer of chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89) three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness. Melt four ounces of grated fat pork in a saucepan with as much lean bacon cut into quarter-inch squares; add the squabs, and fry the whole together over a bright fire. When the squabs are nicely browned, drain off the fat and moisten with a quarter of a bottle of white wine, then reduce, add some espagnole sauce (No. 414), and season to taste, adding half a pound of small mushroom heads, and four ounces of minced truffles, then let the whole get cold. Fill up the timbale with separate layers of squabs, mushrooms, bacon, and sauce, and cover over with more quenelle forcemeat, and besides this a lid of puff paste (No. 146); cook in a moderate oven, and when the timbale is done, remove it from the fire, dress, take off the lid, and pour in some espagnole sauce (No. 414) with Madeira; serve the timbale very hot. Instead of cutting the squabs in two, they may be boned and stuffed with delicate chicken quenelle forcemeat, then laid in oval-shaped rings and braised, finishing them as for the others.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a raised pie in a deep mold, lined with pastry and forcemeat, filled with a squab ragoût that must be cooked and cold before it goes in. The hinge is that chilling: warm filling melts the forcemeat lining and softens the paste, and the timbale collapses when you unmold it.

SquabsSquab is a young domestic pigeon, generally around four to five weeks old and dressed at roughly 12-16 oz, though sizes vary by supplier. Order from a game butcher or online supplier; six birds quartered should feed eight to ten as an entree. Cornish game hen is a common stand-in, though the meat is paler and milder.
"Grated fat pork"Fatback or unsmoked salt pork, grated on a box grater so it renders fast. If using salt pork, blanch it first or the finished sauce will be too salty once reduced. Four ounces each of fat pork and diced lean bacon is generous rendering fat for six birds; pour most of it off as directed.
A quarter of a bottle of wineCall it about 6 fl oz, taking a bottle at roughly 25 fl oz; bottle sizes were not closely standardised in Ranhofer's day, so this is an approximation. Reduce it until nearly syrupy before the espagnole goes in.
EspagnoleRanhofer's No. 414 is a brown sauce built on brown stock thickened with a brown roux and long-cooked. A good reduced brown veal or chicken stock, lightly thickened, does the same job; you need enough to bind the filling plus a cup or so of Madeira-finished sauce to pour in at the table.
Moderate ovenRead as a modern moderate oven, around 350F; the book gives no temperature. Reckon roughly 60 to 75 minutes for a two-quart mold: the filling is already cooked, so you are baking the pastry through and setting the forcemeat. The center of the forcemeat should reach 165F.
The forcemeat liningThree-sixteenths of an inch is a scant quarter inch, spread with a wet offset spatula over the pastry. It is a sealing layer as much as a garnish; gaps let sauce into the crust.
Truffles and mushroomsFour ounces of minced truffle is a period luxury with no cheap equivalent; a tablespoon of good truffle paste or a few grams of shaved fresh truffle carries the aroma. The "small mushroom heads" are button caps, trimmed and turned, cooked briefly so they do not weep into the sauce.
Two or fourThe recipe opens by cutting each bird in four and closes by referring to "cutting the squabs in two" — an inconsistency in the original. Quarters pack better into a mold. The bones stay in either way, so warn the table, or use the boned-and-stuffed variation at the end.
Unmolding and serviceRest ten minutes, then invert onto a platter or, more safely, serve from the mold on a folded napkin. Cut the puff paste lid off cleanly, pour in the hot Madeira sauce, and serve at once with more sauce alongside.

A Little History

The dish is named for Joseph Berchoux, the French lawyer-poet whose 1801 verse La Gastronomie, ou l'homme des champs à table helped put the word gastronomie into circulation; nineteenth-century kitchens attached his name to rich, pigeon-and-truffle preparations much as they attached Brillat-Savarin's or Rossini's. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, printed it in The Epicurean (1894), a book organized less as a cookbook than as a professional reference — hence the cross-references to numbered foundation recipes for paste, quenelle forcemeat and espagnole, which a line cook was expected to have already made. Squab was ordinary market poultry in that period, and only later a restaurant rarity. The timbale itself — a deep mold lined with paste, filled, lidded and baked — belongs to the older tradition of the raised pie, and the recipe insists the last sauce go in after the lid comes off.