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.