When you roast them on a spit all the gravy runs out, or if your stuff them and broil them whole you cannot save the gravy so well, though they will be very good with parsley and butter in the dish, or split and broiled with pepper and salt.
To boil pigeons.
BOIL them by themselves, for fifteen minutes, then boil a handsome square piece of bacon and lay in the middle; stew some spinach to lay round, and lay the pigeons on the spinach. Garnish your dish with parsley laid in a plate before the fire to crisp. Or you may lay one pigeon in the middle, and the rest round, and the spinach between each pigeon, and a slice of bacon on each pigeon. Garnish with slices of bacon and melted butter in a cup.
To à la daube pigeons.
TAKE a large sauce-pan, lay a layer of bacon, then a layer of veal, a layer of coarse beef, and another layer of veal, about a pound of veal and a pound of beef cut very thin, a piece of carrot, a bundle of sweet-herbs, an onion, some black and white pepper, a blade or two of mace, four or five cloves, a little crust of bread toasted very brown. Cover the sauce-pan close, set it over a slow fire for five or six minutes, shake in a little flour, then pour in a quart of boiling water, shake it round, cover it close, and let it stew till the gravy is quite rich and good, then strain it off and skim off all the fat. In the mean time stuff the bellies of the pigeons, with force-meat, made thus: take a pound of veal, a pound of beef-suet, beat both in a mortar fine, an equal quantity of crumbs of bread, some pepper, salt, nutmeg, beaten mace, a little lemon-peel cut small, some parsley cut small, and a very little thyme stripped; mix all together with the yolk of an egg, fill the pigeons, and flat the breast down, flour them and fry them in fresh butter a little brown: then pour the fat clean out of the pan, and put to the pigeons the gravy, cover them close, and let them stew a quarter of an hour, or till you think they are quite enough; then take them up, lay them in a dish, and pour in your sauce: on each pigeon lay a bay-leaf, and on the leaf a slice of bacon. You may garnish with lemon notched, or let it alone.
Note, You may leave out the stuffing, they will be very rich and good without it, and it is the best way of dressing them for a fine made-dish.
Pigeons
