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Squab Timbale

(Timballo di piccioni) Chop together some ham, onion, celery and carrot, add a piece of butter and place on the fire with one or two squabs, according to the number of guests. Add the giblets from the squabs and some more of chicken, if at hand.

Season with salt and pepper, and when the pigeons are browned, pour over some broth to complete the cooking, taking care, however, that the sauce does not become too liquid. Remove the latter and place in it some macaroni that has been half cooked and drained. Keep the macaroni in the sauce on the fire, stirring them. Make a well reduced Bechamel sauce, then cut the squabs at the joints, removing the neck, the legs and the bones of the back, when you would not bone them entirely, which would be better. Cut the giblets in small pieces and remove the soft part of the onion.

When the macaroni have absorbed the sauce, season them with grated cheese, pieces of butter, diamonds or squares of ham, a taste of nutmeg and some truffles or dry mushrooms previously softened in water. Add finally the Bechamel sauce and mix the whole.

Take a sufficiently large mold, butter it and line it with soft pastry. Put everything in the mold, or timbale, cover it with the same pastry and put in the oven. Take out of the mold and serve hot. Three quarters of a pound of macaroni and two pigeons are enough for ten persons. 50