Wood Pigeon and Goat's Cheese Salad

 

Pigeon and goat's cheese salad

As I may have mentioned before, pigeon breasts are among my favourite eating forms of wild game. The birds are incredibly easy to clean, the breasts are incredibly easy to cook in a variety of different ways and the lean, tender meat is suited to a wide variety of tasty dishes. This recipe is about as simple as simple gets and sees a couple of tender pigeon breasts combined in a simple goat's cheese salad. Perfect for a light, summer lunch on a warm day - or, quite frankly, any time of year when you either have some fresh pigeon breasts to hand or some in your freezer needing defrosted and used up...

Cook Time

Prep time: 5 min

Cook time: 5 min

Ready in: 10 min

Yields: 1 serving

Ingredients

• 2 skinless pigeon breast fillets
• Salt and pepper
• Vegetable oil for frying
• Generous handful mixed green salad leaves of choice
• 1 medium tomato
• 2 ounces/50g goat's cheese
• Generous pinch dried oregano

Frying pigeon breast fillets

Method

Pour a little bit of vegetable oil into a small, non-stick frying pan and bring it up to a medium to high heat. Season the pigeon breasts on both sides with salt and pepper and fry over a medium heat for 2.5 minutes each side. Remove to a plate, cover with foil and leave to rest for 5 minutes. 

Washing tomato and salad leaves

Wash the salad leaves and tomato under running cold water in a colander. Shake the leaves dry. Cut the tomato in half, down through the core, then cut each half in to 3 wedges before adding to a bowl with the leaves. Season with salt and pepper and toss gently by hand.

Diced goat's cheese is added to salad

Roughly dice the goat's cheese and add to the bowl with the salad.

Thinly sliced pigeon breast

Sit the pigeon breasts on a chopping board. Holding one end of each breast in turn in place with a fork, slice them fairly thinly at an acute angle with a very sharp carving knife.

Gently combining pigeon salad ingredients

Add the pigeon slices to the bowl with the cheese and salad, scatter with the dried oregano and gently stir toss with a wooden spoon before plating for service.

Hot Smoked Trout with Scrambled Duck Eggs and Beetroot Salad

Hot smoked rainbow trout with scrambled duck eggs

I am lucky enough to have been enjoying home (hot) smoked rainbow trout on a semi-regular basis for some years now. In this instance, however, there is a significant difference in that the fillet of trout had been frozen after smoking some weeks earlier and subsequently defrosted overnight in the fridge. I was fairly sure that the trout would still be very enjoyable despite this departure from the normal procedures but I decided that given it had been frozen, it would be prudent to very carefully reheat it in some fashion rather than simply eating it cold as I would normally do with freshly smoked fish.

Hot smoked rainbow trout fillet

As you will see from the image above, this was a fairly large fillet, easily making for three portions. In this recipe, I am focusing only on the tail portion of the fillet, how I re-heated it and how I subsequently served it.

Cook Time (not including original smoking of trout fillet)

Prep time: 10 min

Cook time: 10 min

Ready in: 20 min

Yields: 1 serving

Ingredients

• 1 cooked but not pickled beetroot, roughly chopped
• 6 to 8 pitted black olives, halved down through the core
• Salt and pepper
• Generous pinch dried oregano
• 1 smoked trout fillet tail section
• Little bit of vegetable oil
• 3 Savoy cabbage leaves, rolled and shredded
• 1/2 white onion, sliced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Pinch dried sage
• 2 duck eggs
• Dried dill to garnish 

Method

Start by preparing the beetroot and olives salad as you are hands on cooking pretty much all the way afterwards. Simply add the chopped beetroot and olive halves to a bowl, season with salt, pepper and a little dried oregano, stir carefully but well and set aside until required.

Tough core is cut from Savoy cabbage leaf and discarded

It is worth pointing out that I like to cut the cores out of these larger Savoy cabbage leaves and discard them before I subsequently roll and shred the leaves. While this is not essential, the cores can be exceptionally tough and less than pleasant to eat, even when thinly sliced and cooked.

Trout fillet is laid in medium hot pan skin side down

Pour a little bit of vegetable oil into a non-stick frying pan and bring it up to a medium heat. Lay the trout fillet in the pan skin side down and leave it to gently reheat while you cook the cabbage and onion. The thick skin will protect the flesh from overcooking. Do not season the fillet in any way as this has been taken care of prior to smoking. Note: if the skin has already been removed from the trout, this re-heating method is not appropriate. You will have to use an alternative option, such as gently heating it wrapped in foil in the oven.

Starting to saute cabbage and onion

Pour a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into a large saucepan and put it on to a medium heat. Add the cabbage and onion before seasoning with salt, pepper and a pinch of sage. Cook over a medium to high heat, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon, for 3 or 4 minutes until the strands are pretty much softened.

Skin is peeled from smoked trout fillet

Lift the smoked trout fillet to a square serving plate with a spatula. You should find that the skin will easily peel away from the flesh in one clean piece.

Beetroot salad and sauteed cabbage are arranged alongside trout

Carefully turn the trout over on to its presentation side. Spoon the beetroot and olive salad along either side before arranging the sauteed cabbage and onion either side of that.

Duck eggs ready fro scrambling

Break the two duck eggs into a small saucepan. A little bit of butter can also be added if desired for extra creaminess but do not season at this stage! Put the pot on to a medium heat and stir constantly with a wooden spoon as the eggs start to scramble. Be careful not to overcook. Season at the very last minute with a little salt and pepper before plating alongside your trout and garnishing with a little dried dill before service.

Mini Wood Pigeon Pie #4: Pigeon and Bell Pepper Pot Pie with Chilli Sprouts

 

Pigeon and bell pepper pie with chilli sprouts and turmeric mash

This latest venture into the mini pigeon pie world is a little bit of a spicy affair. The pigeon pie itself incorporates only very mild bell peppers but the chilli sauce in which the Brussels sprouts are contained can be varied to suite preferences and tastes. You could of course add a touch of chilli to the pie as well, should you wish!

Cook Time

Prep time: 15 min

Cook time: 40 min

Ready in: 55 min

Yields: 1 serving

Ingredients

• 1 pigeon breast, finely chopped
• 1 inch (2.5cm) strip from each of red, yellow and green bell peppers, moderately finely chopped
• Salt and black pepper
• 2 teaspoons wild game/pigeon stock (see Hunter's Pie post for recipe)
• 2 ounces (50g) puff pastry
• Flour for rolling pastry
• Beaten egg for glazing pastry
• 1 large baking potato, peeled and chopped into 1.5 inch (4cm) chunks
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 6 to 8 small Brussels sprouts
• 1 tablespoon canned chopped tomatoes in tomato juice
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped white onion
• Generous pinch hot chilli powder
• 1 large garlic clove, peeled and grated
• Little bit of butter
• 2 teaspoons freshly chopped coriander (cilantro)

Combining pigeon with bell peppers

Method

Put your oven on to preheat to 200C/Gas Mark 6/400F.

Add the chopped pigeon and bell peppers to a bowl, season with salt and pepper and mix well.

Pie filling is added to cooking dish

The pigeon and pepper combination should be added to a small, ovenproof dish, ideally 5" x 4" x 1.5" (12.5cm x 10cm x 4cm). Carefully spread it out to form an even layer and drizzle the two teaspoons of stock over the top.

Pastry is laid on pie filling and glazed

Roll the pastry out on a floured surface to a rectangle just large enough to cover the pie filling. Sit it on top of the filling and tuck it in around the edges. Glaze with beaten egg and cut a small steam vent in the centre.

Put the pie on a baking tray and into the oven to cook for 30 minutes or until the pastry is risen and golden.

When the pie has been in the oven, add the potatoes to a pot of cold water, seasoned with salt and the ground turmeric. Put the pot on to a high heat until the water starts to boil then reduce the heat to achieve a gentle simmer for 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are just softened.

When the potatoes are on, put a second pot of salted water on to reach a rolling boil before adding the sprouts to simmer for 7 to 8 minutes. Drain through a colander and set aside.

When the potatoes are done, also drain through a metal colander and return to the empty pot to steam off for a few minutes. NB: it is never a good idea to use a plastic colander where turmeric is involved. It will very quickly stain it irrevocably!

Take the pie from the oven and sit it on what will become the serving plate.

Preparing spicy tomato sauce for sprouts

Put the chopped tomatoes into the pot vacated by the sprouts. Add the onion, garlic, chilli powder and some salt and pepper to season. Stir well and put on to a medium heat. Bring to a simmer for 2 minutes, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon.

Sprouts are added to chilli sauce

Add the sprouts to the simmering sauce and carefully stir them around in it for a minute or so to fully coat and reheat them all the way through.

Mashing buttered turmeric potatoes

Add a little bit of butter to the potatoes before mashing with a hand masher.

Chopped coriander is added to mashed potatoes

Add the chopped coriander to the potatoes and carefully stir it through.

Pigeon and bell pepper pie with chilli sprouts and mash

I used an ice cream scoop to plate the potatoes alongside the pie before spooning the chilli sauce sprouts alongside.

Pheasant Leg Meat Spicy Salad Platter

Pheasant leg meat salad platter

This is the third post consisting of the pheasant leg meat taken from a batch of legs I slow cooked recently to use in a variety of dishes. It is a bit of a varied creation but, even though I do say so myself, I think it looks very colourful and attractive when fully assembled. This platter should comfortably serve two people and plates like this are widely available on Amazon or similar online/offline retailers. 

Cook Time

Prep time: 30 min

Cook time: 20 min

Ready in: 50 min

Yields: 2 servings

I know this ingredients list is fairly lengthy (!) but the good news - as I hope you can easily see - is that it is infinitely variable.

Ingredients

• 1 medium white onion, peeled, halved and finely sliced
• 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
• 1 teaspoon mint sauce
• 1 teaspoon runny honey
• Juice of half a lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground fenugreek
• 1/4 teaspoon hot chilli powder
• Salt
• 6 to 8 baby new potatoes, halved but not peeled
• 3 duck eggs, 10 to 14 days old (fresher duck eggs do not hard boil well)
• 3" (7.5cm) piece of cucumber (English cucumber, US), seeded and roughly chopped
• 8 pitted black olives, halved down through the core
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Generous pinch dried dill (plus extra for garnishing eggs)
• 8 baby plum tomatoes, halved down through core
• 3 small fresh basil leaves, rolled and shredded
• Black pepper
• Generous handful pheasant leg meat in small chunks (see Pheasant Leg Meat Doner Kebab post for cooking instructions)
• 1 tablespoon grated Cheddar cheese, or similar cheese
• 6 baby spinach leaves, roughly chopped
• 4 closed cup mushrooms, quartered
• 2 large garlic cloves, peeled and grated
• Generous pinch dried sage

Method

The order in which you prepare the component parts of this dish can be altered to suit your preferences and time available. I prefer to start with the spiced onions, to give them maximum time for the flavours to infuse. This part could very easily be completed the night before with the onions refrigerated in a suitable dish overnight.

Sliced onion is added to spicy tomato sauce

Put the ketchup, mint sauce, honey, lemon juice, fenugreek and chilli powder into a glass or stone bowl. Season with a little salt and mix very well to form a smooth paste. Add the sliced onion and stir carefully but well to ensure even coating. Cover and refrigerate until required.

Put the halved potatoes into a pot of cold, salted water and on to a high heat until the water just starts to boil. Adjust the heat to achieve a moderate simmer and maintain for around 20 minutes or until the potatoes are just softened.

Put the duck eggs into a separate pot of cold water and bring to a modest simmer for precisely 6 minutes.

Cucumber is combined with black olives

Put the cucumber and black olive pieces into a small bowl. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and season with a little salt and dried dill. Stir carefully but well.

Baby plum tomatoes and basil

Add the halved tomatoes to a separate small bowl, along with the shredded basil leaves, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, salt and black pepper. Stir carefully but well.

When the duck eggs have been simmering for the 6 allotted minutes, take the pot to the sink and run cold water into it for a couple of minutes until the eggs are cool enough to handle. Crack the shells carefully on a hard surface and peel. Very importantly, return the peeled eggs to the pot of cold water and let them sit for a few minutes to cool completely. Cooling them quickly like this rather than leaving them to cool naturally prevents the harmless but unattractive blue/grey discolouration occurring around the edge of the yolks.

Starting to plate up meal components

While the duck eggs were cooling and the potatoes were completing cooking, I began assembling the different components of the meal on my attractive platter. The well in the centre was perfect for the spiced onions, while the cucumber and tomato combinations went into separate compartments and the pheasant leg meat into a third. The cooled eggs were then carefully halved down through the centre with a very sharp knife and arranged in dedicated slots on the platter before being seasoned with salt and dried dill. The sixth egg half constituted chef's privileges...

When the potatoes are cooked, drain them at your sink and return them to the empty pot. Allow them to sit and steam off/dry out for a couple of minutes while you prepare the garlic mushrooms.

Mushrooms are sauteed in garlic and olive oil

Pour 2 or 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil into a small saucepan and grate in the peeled garlic cloves. Put the pot on to a medium heat until the oil is just hot before adding the quartered mushrooms. If you add the mushrooms before the oil is hot, they will start to soak up the oil before they get a chance to cook and develop an unpleasant, slimy texture. Season with salt, black pepper and the dried sage and saute for a couple of minutes only, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon. Spoon the mushrooms into the appropriate area of your plate with a slotted spoon.

Cheese and spinach are added to hot potatoes

Add the cheese and spinach to the still hot potatoes and season with a little black pepper only. Very carefully stir fold for a minute or so to partly melt the cheese before spooning straight into/on to your plate and serve your meal immediately.

Pheasant Leg Meat Three Ways and Devilled Duck Egg Summer Salad

Pheasant leg meat three ways salad

In this second recipe featuring the batch of pheasant legs I slow cooked in the previous post, I have opted to serve the meat three very different ways. I hope you like the colourful presentation and the simple but tasty ideas I have come up with to enjoy this tasty wild game to the full.

Cook Time (not including Pheasant Legs)

Prep time: 20 min

Cook time: 10 min

Ready in: 30 min

Yields: 1 serving

Ingredients

• 1 small white onion, peeled and finely diced
• 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
• 2 teaspoons mint sauce (1 for spiced onions and 1 for cucumber log)
• 1 teaspoon runny honey
• Juice of half a lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground fenugreek
• 1/4 teaspoon hot chilli powder
• Salt and pepper
• 1 duck egg, around 10 days old (fresher duck eggs do not hard boil at all well)
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 4 tablespoons pheasant leg meat (small pieces, cooked as in Pheasant Leg Meat Doner Kebab recipe post)
• 2 tablespoons grated/shredded cheddar or similar hard cheese
• 2 inch (5cm) piece cucumber (English cucumber, US)
• 1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• Generous pinch dried dill
• 6 to 8 baby spinach leaves
• Generous handful pea shoots (or similar green leaves)

Diced onions are added to spiced tomato paste

Method

The spiced onions should ideally be prepared a couple of hours in advance or even the night before, just to let the flavours infuse, but this is not essential. Start by combining the tomato ketchup, 1 teaspoon of the mint sauce, honey, lemon juice, chilli powder and ground fenugreek in a large glass bowl. Season with a little salt and pepper and stir in the chopped onions, ensuring even coating. Cover and refrigerate until required.

Put the duck egg in to a pot of cold water and the pot on to a high heat until the water starts to boil. Reduce the heat to achieve a moderate simmer and continue to cook in this way for precisely 6 minutes.

Halved and seeded tomatoes

Put your kitchen grill/broiler on to preheat to its highest setting.

Cut the tomatoes in half around the central circumference by making cuts at alternate 45-degree angles, all the way around and through to the core. The halves should fairly easily pull apart at the end of this process. A teaspoon can then be used to carefully scoop out and discard the seeds before the insides are patted dry with a wad of kitchen paper.

Pheasant meat and cheese

Add 2 tablespoons of the pheasant leg meat and the cheese to a bowl and season with black pepper. Use your fingers to lightly mix and combine.

Tomato halves filled with pheasant meat and cheese

You can use a teaspoon but I find it easier to use my fingers to fill the tomato halves with the cheese and pheasant leg meat combination. You can press down lightly to fully fill but don't compact too much or the cheese won't melt as it should. Lay the tomato halves on a suitable tray and place under the heat for a couple of minutes until the top of the cheese is melted and lightly golden. Sit aside to cool.

Lift the pot containing the duck egg to your sink and run cold water into it for a couple of minutes to help cool the duck egg quickly. Leave it sitting in the cold water while you continue your preparations. 

Pheasant leg meat and mint sauce

Add 1 of the remaining tablespoons of pheasant leg meat to a clean bowl along with the second teaspoon of mint sauce. Stir gently but well.

Cucumber and minted pheasant leg meat logs

Cut the cucumber piece in half down through the core. Use a teaspoon to scrape out and discard the seeds. Carefully fill the resulting groove with the pheasant and cucumber mix.

Pheasant leg meat and spiced onions

Put the final tablespoon of pheasant meat into a bowl along with a tablespoon of the spiced onions. Mix well. The remaining onions will keep in your fridge in a suitable container for several days.

Arrange the spinach leaves around the inner edge of a small ramekin and fill with the pheasant and spiced onion combination.

Removing yolk from duck egg halves

Crack the shell of the duck egg all over against a hard surface and carefully peel. Cut the egg in half down through the yolk and carefully scoop the yolk halves out of the white with a teaspoon and add to a small bowl.

Duck egg yolk, mustard and dill

Add the Dijon mustard and pinch of dill to the egg yolk before mixing well together with the back of a teaspoon. Carefully spoon half the mix into the empty cavity in each of the two egg white halves.

Plating up pheasant three ways salad

Arrange the pea shoots in the bottom of a deep serving plate and sit the ramekin of the spicy pheasant and onion mix in the centre. Lay a tomato half at each of the main points of the compass.

Arrange the cucumber logs in opposite gaps on the plate and the duck egg halves in the remaining two and serve.

Pheasant Leg Meat Doner Kebab

Pheasant leg meat doner kebab

Today's post is the first in a series of three relating to the slow cooked meat from pheasant legs. We are obviously well out of pheasant season but I still have a small supply of both legs and breasts tucked away in my freezer. Normally when I defrost and slow cook a batch of pheasant legs, I use the meat to batch cook such as chillies or curries and freeze it in smaller portions for subsequent use. In this instance, I decided to experiment a little bit further and this doner kebab (of sorts!) is the first dish I came up with.

A traditional doner kebab sees strips of lamb arranged around a skewer and cooked via a rotisserie grill. In the UK, versions of this dish are normally associated with late night takeaways for those leaving pubs or nightclubs but I hope this is a version you may want to try at home for sober consumption, whether you use pheasant leg meat or something more traditional and readily available.

Stage 1 (provides pheasant leg meat for all 3 recipes in series)

Cook Time

Prep time: 5 min (plus resting and cooling time for cooked legs)

Cook time: 10 hours

Ready in: 11 hours, approximately

Yields: Meat for 3 single serving recipes

 

Pheasant legs ready for slow cooking

Ingredients

• 8 whole, skinless, fresh or fully defrosted pheasant legs
• 1 white onion, peeled and quartered
• 6 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed
• 2 whole small red chillies
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Water

Slow cooked pheasant legs

Method

Put the pheasant legs, onion, chillies, garlic and salt into your slow cooker. Pour in enough cold water to ensure the legs are comfortably covered. Put the lid on to your slow cooker and switch it on at its low setting. Cook for 10 hours. I usually do this overnight but maybe leaving it to do its job while you are out at work during the day would suit you better?

Pheasant legs removed from slow cooker

Use a large slotted spoon to remove the onion, chillies and garlic from the slow cooker and discard. Lift the pheasant legs to a deep plate, cover and allow to rest and cool sufficiently that they may be comfortably handled. (Note:  around a pint of the pheasant cooking liquid needs to be reserved for part of the kebab preparation.) I then like to break the drumsticks and thighs apart before carefully plucking off all the meat in small clumps. Be aware that this can be pretty time consuming in the case of the drumsticks due to their unusual bone structure. 

Stage 2 (Pheasant Leg Meat Doner Kebab)

Cook Time

Prep time: 10 min

Cook time: 5 min

Ready in: 15 min

Yields: 2 servings

Combining ingredients for kebab sauce

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons Greek (or plain, natural) yoghurt
• 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
• 2 teaspoons mint sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon hot chilli powder
• Salt
• 3 or 4 Little Gem lettuce leaves, rolled and sliced
• 6 to 8 baby plum tomatoes, halved
• 3" (7.5cm) piece of cucumber (English cucumber, US), seeded and roughly chopped
• Black pepper
• Generous handful pheasant leg meat
• 1 pint pheasant leg cooking liquid
• 2 pitta breads

Method

Spoon the yoghurt, ketchup and mint sauce into a small bowl. Season with the chilli powder and salt before mixing very well to combine. Refrigerate until required.

Combining kebab salad ingredients

Add the lettuce, tomato and cucumber to a large bowl or suitable dish and season with salt and pepper. Carefully mix by hand to ensure even distribution of the seasoning and ingredients.

Re-heated pheasant leg meat

Pour the pheasant cooking liquid into a small saucepan and bring it up to a gentle simmer. Add the pheasant leg meat, stir well and continue to simmer for 2 or 3 minutes, just until the meat is heated through. Drain through a sieve at your sink.

Pheasant meat is added to pitta pocket

Reheat the pitta breads per the instructions on the pack, ensuring they puff up like filled envelopes. Carefully slice each one open along a long edge and use cooking tongs to divide the warmed pheasant meat between the two pockets.

Pitta pockets are filled with salad

Fill each pocket with salad and drizzle the sauce over the top before serving.