Pigeon Pie with Dumpling Crust:
Pigeon Pie with Dumpling Crust:
Pigeons that are old and tough are better cooked in a pie. Take 4-6 pigeons, dress and joint the birds, and put the neck and backs to simmer for gravy with 4 cloves, salt and pepper. Take a piedish, grease it well, and lay at the bottom either a bay leaf, a scrap of garlic, or a little shredded shallot (one or the other, not all three).
Cover these with a thin slice of raw beef, notched into squares, and put the pigeon pieces over the top, seasoning well. Pack in half a dozen small mushrooms and, over all, the scraps from a ham-bone, or bacon trimmings diced small.
Fill up with
half of the spiced gravy, and cover with a very thin suet crust that should lie
flat down on the meat inside the piedish. Cover the dish with a lid and bake the
pie for about an hour. The inside crust keeps in the aroma, and by the end of
an hour it should be thoroughly cooked and light as bread.
Take out the pie, cut the dumpling crust into squares, and pack it down amongst the pigeon meat, which should be now really tender. Fill up the piedish with the rest of the hot gravy, put a light shortcrust paste over the piedish in the usual way and return to the oven to bake for another 20-30 minutes till the crust is done crisp and brown.
To serve cut a slice out of the top crust, lift out a square of the dumpling paste, arrange upon this square of paste a pigeon, apiece of beef it was cooked upon, some mushrooms, and ham or bacon scraps; pour the gravy round, and top it off with the slice of pie crust." (Food in England, Dorothy Hartley, 1954, page 202.)