Compote de Pigeons (Stewed Pigeons)

Instructions

1. Cut into dice from half to three quarters of a pound of streaked bacon, and fry it gently in a large stewpan with a morsel of butter until it is very lightly browned. Lift it out.
2. Put in three or four young pigeons trussed as for boiling, laid into the stewpan with the breasts downwards. When they have become firm and lightly coloured, lift them out.
3. Stir a large tablespoonful of flour into the fat. When this thickening (roux) is also slightly browned, add gradually to it a pint, or something more, of boiling veal-stock or strong broth.
4. Put back the birds and the bacon, with a few small button-onions when their flavour is liked, and stew the whole very gently for three quarters of an hour.
5. Dish the pigeons neatly with the bacon and onions laid between them. Skim all the fat from the sauce, reduce it quickly, and strain it over them.
6. Optional: the third, or half, of a pottle of small mushrooms is sometimes added.
7. To make it a compote aux petits pois: add a pint and a half of young peas to the pigeons when the broth in which they are laid first begins to boil. For these, a pint and a quarter at the least of liquid will be required, and a full hour's stewing.
8. Economy: water can be substituted for the broth. When the birds can be had at little cost, one, two or more should be stewed down to make broth or sauce for the others.
9. Acton's note on the bacon: the French use more bacon in much of their cookery than would generally suit a very delicate taste. Theirs, being cured without saltpetre and not smoked, rather resembles salt pork in flavour; she explains this so that the reader may, when so disposed, adapt the receipt to an English table by omitting it.
10. Obs.: pigeons are excellent filled with the mushrooms au beurre of page 329, and either roasted or stewed. To broil them, proceed as directed for a partridge (French receipt), page 290.