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Squab Timbale

A historical recipe from The Italian Cook Book The Art of Eating Well, by Maria Gentile (1919).

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A historical recipe

The Italian Cook Book The Art of Eating Well; Practical Recipes of the Italian Cuisine, Pastries, Sweets, Frozen Delicacies, and Syrups, by Maria Gentile (1919). Project Gutenberg eBook #24407.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

Italy

Known as an Italian recipe, with similar versions prepared across other nations.

Ingredients 1 ingredient

  1. a pound of macaroni

Cook safely

Keep children and pets away from the hob and the oven, and keep oven gloves and a lid within reach.

  • Oven and hot trays. Use dry oven gloves for trays and dishes: a hot tray looks just like a cold one. Open the oven door away from your face and let the first rush of heat out.
  • Sharp knives. Cut on a board that doesn't slip (a damp cloth under it helps), and curl the fingers of the hand that holds the food.

Method

  1. 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.
  2. Add the giblets from the squabs and some more of chicken, if at hand.
  3. 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.
  4. Remove the latter and place in it some macaroni that has been half cooked and drained.
  5. Keep the macaroni in the sauce on the fire, stirring them.
  6. Make a well reduced Béchamel 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.
  7. Cut the giblets in small pieces and remove the soft part of the onion.
  8. 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.
  9. Add finally the Béchamel sauce and mix the whole.
  10. Take a sufficiently large mold, butter it and line it with soft pastry.
  11. Put everything in the mold, or timbale, cover it with the same pastry and put in the oven.
  12. Take out of the mold and serve hot.
  13. Three quarters of a pound of macaroni and two pigeons are enough for ten persons.

Plating

Cookware for this recipe

  • Chef's knife
  • Cutting board
  • Grater
  • Wooden spoon
  • Colander
Source Public domain in the USA
Credit

From The Italian Cook Book The Art of Eating Well, by Maria Gentile (1919). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #24407 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24407). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.