Name: Rich Pigeon Faggot on a Potato Cake with Mustard Cabbage
Yield: Makes 12 Faggots
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: ½ small green or Savoy cabbage, cut into wedges; 150 ml (¼ pint) Mustard Butter Sauce, using English mustard; 6 tablespoons pigeon jus, made from game stock; 6 Potato Cakes, pan-fried; Cooking oil; 225 g (8 oz) pig’s caul, soaked in cold water overnight; 2 small chicken breasts, skinned; 6 wood pigeon breasts (use the legs and carcasses from the whole birds for stock); 50 g (2 oz) foie gras (optional); Salt and pepper; 175 g (6 oz) pork meat, trimmed (belly or leg can be used); 1 tablespoon chopped shallots; 75 g (3 oz) chicken livers; 75 g (3 oz) pork back fat; 2–3 tablespoons Armagnac or brandy; ½ teaspoon lightly chopped thyme leaves; 1 garlic clove, crushed; 1 egg white; 4 tablespoons Madeira; 100 ml (3½ fl oz) double cream (1–2 tablespoons more may be needed); 2 juniper berries, crushed; Sprig of thyme; ½ garlic clove; 3 tablespoons Madeira; 3 tablespoons port; 900 ml (1½ pints) Game Stock, made from pigeon legs and carcasses; Butter

Preparation info

Makes
12
Faggots

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

New British Classics

By Gary Rhodes

Published 1999

About

Faggots were extremely popular in the past as a means of using up odd pieces of offal left over after the pig had been killed. They are in a way a sort of cross between a pàté and a sausage, being a pàté mixture bound up in caul fat (all sausages used to be encased in animal entrails) in a sausage shape.

These faggots have a good, gamey, pigeon flavour, bound and balanced with pork and chicken livers, which give the moist texture needed to achieve a succulent finish. It’s important,