CookEat Recipe
Squabs en Casserole Léopold
Young squabs roasted, then cooked in a dough-sealed earthen casserole with lean bacon, onions, peas, mushrooms, truffle, herb leaves, wine and demi-glace, brought to the table covered.
Method
Steps
Step 1
Have all the garnish and sauce ready for assembly so the squabs can continue cooking without a holding interval. Preheat a conventional oven to 400°F. Use six plump young raw whole squabs with the heads and feet removed; draw them, save the livers and hearts separately, and truss the birds. Put them in a roasting pan, sprinkle with one teaspoon of salt and lightly baste with a little melted butter.
Step 2
Roast for twenty minutes as an initial guide, then untruss the squabs and immediately place them in an oven-safe earthen casserole large enough for all the birds and garnish, with a matching oven-safe lid. Lower the conventional oven setting to 180°C.
Step 3
Cut two ounces of very lean raw bacon into quarter-inch-square pieces. Fry in one teaspoon of melted butter until fully cooked and nicely golden, tossing occasionally. Lift out with a skimmer, drain on a clean cloth and add to the squabs.
Step 4
In the same bacon pan, fry six small peeled onions for eight minutes as a guide, or until nicely browned all around. Add them to the squabs with half a pint of fresh shelled peas.
Step 5
Cut one medium whole culinary truffle and four peeled fresh mushrooms into small square pieces and add them. Season with the remaining half teaspoon of salt and three saltspoons of pepper. Pick the leaves from one branch of chervil and one branch of parsley and sprinkle them over everything.
Step 6
Measure half a gill of finished concentrated demi-glace before loosening that portion with a little hot ready-to-use unsalted veal broth, following the linked sauce preparation. If the demi-glace was refrigerated or thawed, bring the diluted portion to a full rolling boil while stirring and check at least 165°F. Pour all of this prepared portion into the casserole with half a gill of sherry and one gill of white wine. Gently shuffle the casserole to distribute the liquids.
Step 7
Put the lid on. Mix a little flour and water into a dough, roll it on the table into a rope and fit it around the lid edges to seal the joint. Keep all the birds, garnish and liquids inside the same casserole.
Step 8
Cook covered in the 180°C conventional oven, using fifty minutes as a guide. During cooking, check as needed at the oven door with a clean food thermometer: every squab must reach at least 165°F in the innermost thigh and wing and the thickest breast, away from bone. The squabs, onions and peas must also be tender. Whenever the lid is lifted, replace it and renew the flour-and-water edge seal before continuing covered cooking as necessary.
Step 9
Once the final temperature and tenderness checks are satisfied, replace the lid and renew its edge seal before taking the casserole from the oven. Send the same sealed casserole straight to the table without uncovering, and serve promptly.
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