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Pigeon Surprise
(Piccione a sorpresa) The pigeon (or chicken) must be opened and stuffed with a cutlet of milk veal. Of course this with a cutlet of milk veal. Of course this cutlet must be of proportionate size. Beat it well to render it thinner and more tender, season with salt, pepper, a pinch of spices and little pieces of butter, roll it and put inside the pigeon sewing the opening. The liver and giblets of the pigeon can be cooked apart in brown stock or in butter, after being chopped. With the resulting gravy the cutlet can be smeared. In this way the different flavor of the two qualities of meat is better amalgamated. 138
The original assumes you know how to roast a small bird and gives no oven, time or temperature at all. The instructions here fill in what the text takes for granted.
- Milk veal"Milk veal" means milk-fed veal, the pale, fine-grained meat of a calf raised on milk rather than grain. Any thin veal scallop or cutlet works; a pounded pork loin cutlet is one substitute where veal is hard to find.
- Pigeon means squabThe bird intended is a young domestic pigeon, sold today as squab, typically 12-16 oz and enough for one person. A poussin or Cornish hen is the closest common stand-in; the chicken alternative the recipe offers should be a small one, not a 4 lb roaster.
- Size the cutlet properly"Proportionate size" is the hinge. Pound the veal to about 1/4 inch, then trim it so the roll fits the cavity without straining the skin, otherwise the seams tear as the bird contracts and the stuffing dries out.
- A pinch of spicesIn Italian books of this period "spices" generally indicates a warm mixed spice, typically nutmeg with a little clove or cinnamon. A grating of nutmeg alone is a reasonable reading.
- RoastingRoast at 425F for a young pigeon, roughly 20-25 minutes, basting with butter. A small chicken is better at 400F for 45-55 minutes. Because the veal roll is raw when it goes in, the stuffing needs to reach 145F even if you like the pigeon breast pink.
- Sewing and restingClose the cavity with a trussing needle and cotton twine, or with skewers laced with twine. Rest the bird 10 minutes before cutting the stitches so the juices settle into the veal.
- The giblet gravyChop the liver and giblets fine and cook them in butter or brown stock until just set, a matter of minutes; liver held over heat turns grainy and bitter. The recipe uses this to smear the cutlet rather than as a poured sauce, so keep it thick.
- YieldOne stuffed pigeon per person; a small chicken done this way serves two, carved across so each portion takes a slice of the veal roll.
This comes from Maria Gentile's The Italian Cook Book (1919), a slim volume written to bring Italian home cooking to American kitchens. The sorpresa is the concealed second meat: the diner cuts into what looks like an ordinary roast pigeon and finds a rolled veal cutlet inside, and the point, as the text says outright, is that the two flavors amalgamate. Stuffing one animal with another is old and widespread in European cookery, from medieval banquet birds to the boned galantines of French practice, but this is the domestic, one-bird version of the idea. Pigeon was still ordinary meat in Italy in 1919, kept in towers and lofts on farms and sold cheaply; its near-disappearance from American tables and its return as expensive restaurant squab happened well after this book was printed.