Home › Our Susan's Opinion of a Kitchen › Broiled Pigeons or Squabs
Broiled Pigeons or Squabs
Marion Harland.
Young pigeons or "squabs" are rightly esteemed a great delicacy. They are cleaned, washed, and dried carefully with a clean cloth; then split down the back, and broiled like chickens. Season with pepper and salt, and butter liberally in dishing them. They are in great request in a convalescent's room, being peculiarly savory and nourishing.
Marion Harland assumes you know how to broil a chicken and leaves the rest to you. The gaps worth filling are the bird's size, the heat, and how far to take it.
- What a squab isA squab is a young pigeon taken before it has flown, sold dressed at about 12-16 oz. The meat is all dark, closer to duck breast than chicken. Order from a butcher or a game supplier; supermarkets rarely carry them.
- "Broiled" in 1877"Broiled" here -- This means a hinged gridiron over live coals, the bird turned repeatedly. The nearest modern equivalents are a hot charcoal grill or an oven broiler with the rack set 4-5 inches from the element, preheated fully.
- Split down the backThis is spatchcocking. Cut either side of the backbone with shears, remove it, then press the bird flat with the heel of your hand so it lies in even contact with the grid. Flattening is what makes the short cooking time work.
- TimingSkin side away from the heat first, then turned. Ten to fourteen minutes total is usual for a bird of this size. Squab dries out quickly; it is a fast cook, not a slow one.
- DonenessSquab is traditionally served with the breast rosy, around 135F at the thickest point, with the legs taken further. USDA guidance for all poultry is 165F, which will leave the breast grey and firm. Choose knowingly.
- Season before, butter afterHarland's pepper and salt come at the dish rather than before cooking, but salting fifteen minutes ahead gives better seasoning and drier skin. Keep the liberal butter for dishing, as she says: it makes the pan sauce.
- YieldOne bird per person as a main course, half a bird as a first course or for an invalid's tray.
Marion Harland (the pen name of Mary Virginia Terhune) was among the most widely read American domestic writers of the later nineteenth century, and her recipes were reprinted freely in compilations such as this one. Squabs were genuinely commonplace then: pigeons were kept in dovecotes and lofts on farms and even in towns, and the young birds, which fatten quickly and never fly, were harvested at a few weeks old. Her closing note about the sickroom is the period's dietetics rather than sentiment. Nineteenth-century invalid cookery prized foods thought to be concentrated and easily assimilated, and small birds, broiled rather than fried and served without heavy sauce, sat near the top of that list alongside beef tea and oysters. What was once the cheap product of a backyard loft is now a specialty item, largely because commercial pigeon-keeping faded as poultry farming industrialised around the chicken.