Pigeon and Garden Veg Summer Salad

 

Wood pigeon breasts and fresh garden veg salad

Wood pigeon is widely available fresh in Scotland at this time of year, as farmers find the birds are attacking the flourishing crops in their fields and take the necessary control methods. It may be that you will be able to pick them up fairly cheaply in your local area or even online from a wide variety of wild game suppliers. Alternatively, they can fairly easily be purchased frozen or vacuum packed all year round. While pigeons are often plucked and cooked/roasted whole, I have long since decided this is a lot of extra work for very little gain, with ninety-percent plus of the meat being found in the breast fillets.

Pigeon breasts are sliced from crowns

I obtained the pigeon that these breasts were taken from freshly shot, meaning of course I had to clean it myself from its natural state. While I will not be too graphic here in that particular respect, I begin this process by simply removing the crowns from the whole pigeons. I then rinse them off and use a filleting knife to quickly and easily remove the pigeon breast fillets from the central bone. If you are cleaning a number of pigeons in this respect, the crown bones can be used to make a very simple but tasty wild game stock which can subsequently used for soup or even frozen in batches for future use.

Cook Time

Prep time: 10 min

Cook time: 10 min

Ready in: 20 min

Yields: 1 serving

Accumulated salad ingredients

 Ingredients

• 1 duck egg, at least 7 days old, preferably 10*
• 2 skinless pigeon breast fillets
• Salt and pepper
• Vegetable oil for frying
• 1 medium tomato
• 4 angled slices from cucumber
• 4 slices from small, peeled chioggia beetroot
• Small piece of white turnip, peeled and coarsely grated
• Juice of half a lemon
• Malt vinegar
• 1 teaspoon hot horseradish sauce

*When hard boiling eggs of any type, they should be at least 7 days old, otherwise they will remain too acidic and be extremely difficult to peel. With duck eggs being slightly larger than chicken eggs, 10 days old is better if possible.

Starting to fry pigeon breasts

Method

Put the duck egg into a pot of cold water, ensuring it is comfortably submerged. Put the pot on to a high heat, just until the water starts to simmer. Reduce the heat to maintain a moderate simmer for precisely 6 minutes.

Pour a little oil into a small frying pan and put the pan on to reach a high heat. Season the pigeon breasts on both sides with salt and pepper and fry on the high heat for 2.5 minutes each side. If the breasts are particularly large, this can be increased to 3 minutes each side but no longer. Overcooked pigeon breasts will very quickly become tough and essentially inedible. Lift the breasts to a warmed plate, cover with foil and leave to rest for 5 minutes.

When the simmering time is up, lift the pot containing the duck egg to your sink and run cold water into it for a minute or so to cool the egg quickly.

Seeds are removed from tomato cups

It's not essential to present the tomato in this way and it can simply be cut in half in traditional fashion if desired. I think however that this adds a little bit extra to the presentation and it is very easy to do. Simply insert a very sharp knife point into the tomato at the circumference at an angle of 45 degrees. Go all the way through to the core but no further. Make your next cut at an opposite 45-degree angle and proceed in this way all around the tomato circumference. If you have done it correctly, a gentle twist should be sufficient to pull the two halves of the tomato apart. You can then either carefully cut the seeds from the tomato cups or scoop them out with a teaspoon.

Grated white turnip

Grate the piece of white turnip and squeeze over the lemon juice. This prevents it quickly oxidising and discolouring. Season with salt and pepper and carefully toss with your fingers to distribute the lemon juice and seasoning.

Sit one of the tomato cups in the centre of a square serving plate. The other can be used in any way desired, perhaps in a separate dish. Spoon enough white turnip into the tomato cup with a teaspoon to fill. Press down slightly as you do so that you may accommodate all of the turnip.

Basic salad ingredients are plated

Lay the cucumber slices flat on a chopping board and use a sharp knife to carefully cut around the seeds in the centre of each and remove. This should leave you with cucumber slices with a hole in the middle. Season the cucumber slices with a little salt and malt vinegar, if desired. Season the beetroot slices with salt, black pepper and malt vinegar. Lay a cucumber slice in each corner of the plate as shown and lay a beetroot slice in between each pair of cucumber slices.

Duck egg halves and pigeon breasts are plated

Lift the duck egg from the cold water, crack the shell by moderately gently tapping it all over on a hard surface and carefully peel. Cut in half down through the centre and lay one half on opposite cucumber slices. Lay a rested pigeon breast on the remaining cucumber slices and garnish each pigeon breast with half a teaspoon of horseradish sauce before service.