Field To Fork Food

Easy Roast Pigeon Recipe

It’s Sunday morning and I’m heading off to the Farmer’s Market in Stockbridge, Edinburgh. This excites me greatly because there is something for all the family and we can all get treats. The wife will get a coffee, kids will get something sweet and I will pick up some fresh game…win win for us all.

Anyway, back to this easy Roast Pigeon recipe. Seeing how the nights are chilly, I couldn’t think of anything better than a nice Roast Pigeon to warm me up. Sunday is typically the day to have a roast dinner and with two fresh woodpigeons sitting in my fridge, it makes sense to treat myself…..and hopefully the wife.

Here’s some I prepared earlier:

I’ll be the first to admit but prior to cooking these, I had no idea or recipes to hand I could rely on. My mum had never cooked them and brother, who is a chef merely advised to use the breasts. Bit late really given these two beauties were waiting to be cooked.

As the vegetables roasted away, the kitchen filled with smell of carrot, turnip and beets, with the sweetness of the cider wafting through. It made me feel happy. The culmination of the sweet roasted vegetables and the meatiness of the woodpigeon really came together for a great Sunday roast. Whilst I enjoyed it, I don’t think my wife did but that’s ok as it means more for me next time.

This recipe is super easy and if you don’t fancy preparing the pigeon yourself, then pick some up from a farmer’s market or your butcher (if they sell them).

Easy Roast Woodpigeon (2 servings)

You will need:

2 Woodpigeon

2-4 roughly chopped carrots

2 large diced fresh beetroot

1 Artichoke (chopped)

1/2 diced swede

Salt/pepper

Unsalted Butter

Fresh Rosemary

Fresh Thyme

1 bottle dry cider

The process

Preheat oven to 220°c and chop all your vegetables. Place the veg in an oven dish, drizzle with some oil.
Heat up a frying pan and add a massive knob of butter. When the butter starts to bubble, place the pigeon breast side down and spoon the butter over them until golden brown. Once your birds are golden, take them off the heat.
Pop your chopped vegetables into the oven and add a big splash of dry cider to the dish (this will give your vegetables a mild sweetness and glaze to them).
Stuff your pigeon breasts with sprigs of Rosemary and Thyme. Smother the outside of your Woodpigeon with some oil and season with some salt and pepper.
After 20 mins of cooking, take your vegetables out of the oven and given them a mix around. Feel free to add a little more cider, I did. Place your birds on top of the vegetables, breast down and return to the oven.
After 10 minutes, turn the birds so they are now breast up and cook for a further 10 minutes.
Once everything is cooked, remove from oven and get ready to serve. Place your roasted vegetables in the centre of your plate and place your roasted woodpigeon on top. If there are juices left in the dish, drizzle them over for a bit of extra flavour.

Voila, dinner is served. Hope you enjoy.

What the duck!!!!!

I like ducks, they swim in ponds and my kids feed them bread. I’ve had shredded duck a few times from the takeaway but I’ve never even considered trying wild duck so when my friend shot a few, I jumped at the chance.

I was grateful to receive a Golden Eye and a Mallard, the latter had flown into a fence as it plummeted from the sky so I had no other option but to use the breasts….poor wee duck.

Yet again I spent my evening plucking and removing the breasts from a feathered friends, something which I find quite enjoyable and sounds weird to say out loud. Is it weird to take pride in what I consider to be the ultimate food prep?

I had no idea how to cook these so a quick search of the interweb ( How to Cook Wild Duck) and I found the following recipe on the Taste of Game website. It’s an Asian style dish and whilst my Golden Eye duck was juicy and full of flavour it would appear that the wild Mallard was not as nice and had a very strong after taste. It turns out my wife no longer likes duck having politely tried the Mallard.

If you don’t have duck then you could really supplement it with pheasant or any game bird and dare I say it, you could even try it with chicken (skin on).

So that’s it really. It’s Friday night and I’m about to prepare some fresh Wood Pigeon. I’m off to the farmers market for some more treats on Sunday but for now, please enjoy the recipe below.

Cheers

Keith

RECIPE

Pan Fried Duck Breast

Ingredients

4 mallard duck breast
90 grams honey
150 ml dark soy sauce
2 pieces glace stem ginger
100 grams glass noodles dry weight
4 spring onions finely sliced
1 red pepper finely sliced
2 fresh red chillies to make 500 ml of sweet chilli sauce
1 litre white wine vinegar
3 dessert spoons honey oil

Instructions

Take the mallard and with a sharp knife score the skin finely. In a bowl place the honey, soy sauce and finely chopped glace stem ginger. Mix this well and pour into a shallow dish. Lay the duck breasts into the soy marinade skin side down, then cover and leave in fridge overnight. The next day turn them over and so they marinate on the other side for an hour or two.
To make the sweet chilli sauce: Cut the chillies in half and remove the seeds, slice into very thin strips and then chop finely. Add some oil to the pan. When the oil is hot, quickly stir fry the chillies until the oil turns a reddish colour, then add white wine vinegar, bring to the boil and add the honey.
Allow to reduce by half. The sauce should have thickened slightly so that it just coats the back of the spoon. When it goes cold it will become a lot thicker so do not reduce it too much. Allow the sauce to cool. (it can be stored in a clean jar or bottle and refrigerated for up to 2 weeks)
Take the noodles, place them in a bowl and pour over enough boiling water to cover and leave for 5 to 8 minutes to soften then drain. Once the duck has marinated, pat dry and place in a cold non-stick frying pan fat side down. As the pan gets hot the fat will render down and the skin will crisp up. When it browns, turn the duck over and seal on the other side.
Cook for 4 minutes on the other side, then remove form the pan and allow to rest for 4 minutes. In the same pan fry off the red pepper for 5 minutes then add the spring onion and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add 50 ml of sweet chilli sauce and the noodles and saute well. Place a portion of noodles on the plate, thinly slice the duck then lay it on the noodles and enjoy.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander….or so I thought.

A couple of days ago a friend of mine was out wildfowling on the foreshores of Edinburgh where he shot some geese and wigeon. He was kind enough to give me one of each as I had never eaten either of them before and I am always keen to try something new.

I pull up at his house, enter the garage where he presents me with the largest bird I have ever seen, no…not the wigeon. The goose was enormous to the point I wondered how I was going to fit in my wife’s car but I managed and off I went, happy as Larry.

I had big plans for this bird. I was going to pluck, gut then roast it and serve it with some roast tatties and gravy but then reality hit and it hit me hard. I had never plucked a goose before, sure I had plucked a few ducks and they were relatively easy but a goose was something else. I hunched over my kitchen worktop, swearing quietly to myself, refusing to be defeated by this Behemoth that lay before me but after 30 minutes of hard plucking, I threw in the towel and opted to breast out the goose.

If you have never breasted a bird before it is really simple, just place the bird on its back, feel for the breast bone then cut with a filleting knife, keeping it as close to the bone as possible. 5 minutes later, two magnificent goose breasts, weighing 330g a piece, were ready to be popped in the fridge for another day.

That day happened to be Valentine’s Day and I thought I’d whip up a real nice meal for my wife and I, you know….something real special. As I got home she told me she had eaten fish fingers ( of all things) with the kids and wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t even made, in fact I was more than happy as I had more food for myself, which is always a brucie bonus. No word of a lie, I went into this blind and having never cooked goose before, I had no idea how this was going to turn out.

Word of advice, if you’re like me and you like your meat a bit pink, then cook for ten minutes. If you like it a bit more well done, I suggest you cook for fifteen and see how you get on.

This is a real quick inexpensive meal to make. The meat doesn’t dry out and tastes steak like, so here goes:

Ingredients:

1 goose breast

1 pack of Tenderstem Broccoli

2 tsp Dijon Mustard

2 tbsp Creme Fraiche

Coarse ground pepper/salt

Chopped parsley (this is optional)

——————————————————

Method

Mix the mustard and creme fraiche together, add chopped parsley. Put to one side.

Smear both sides of the breast in Olive Oil and coat in the coarse pepper and salt.

Add large knob of butter and a splash of olive oil in a hot frying pan.When the butter starts to bubble, add the breast and keep in a high heat.

After five minutes, add the broccoli to pan of boiling water and cook for roughly five minutes. I don’t like my Broccoli soggy and I felt this was the right cooking time.

Add another knob of butter to your pan and spoon the melted buttery goodness of the cooked breast. It will start to look like peppered steak at this point.

After 10-15 mins cooking time, remove breast from the heat and let it rest while you plate up the broccoli and mustard sauce.

Slice the breast and pop into the plate and voilà, you have yourself a truly delicious meal that not only looks good but tastes phenomenal.

Hope you enjoy.

Cheers

Run Rabbit Run Rabbit Run Run Run….

So it’s the start of February and everyone is banging on about the Beast from the East, not me though as I find myself in awe at the selection of game meat available to buy at the Stockbridge Farmers Market in Edinburgh. If you ever visit Edinburgh then I highly recommend you visit this excellent Farmer’s Market in Stockbridge, which is held every Sunday no matter what the weather.

I make a beeline for Ridley’s Fish & Game stall and start to salivate at the massive selection of meat they have available: langoustine, pigeon, rabbit, fish, game pies… You name it and they will probably have it. I wait patiently for my wife and kids to walk back to the car as I know I will get grief for buying a wittle bunny Wabbit but as soon as they leave my line of sight, I jump at the chance to snag myself the largest rabbit available. It’s been prepared for me so all that is required is a good ol’ recipe to warm me up on this winters day.

Back at home, I unload the shopping and discreetly place the rabbit carcass out of sight but not before my wife clocks it. She feels bad for the rabbit and refuses to taste what I make but that’s ok, just meant more food for me.

As soon as I bought my meat I knew that I was going to make a nice hearty rabbit stew with some wild rice to accompany it. Long story short..9 hours in the slow cooker, my stew was ready and it did not disappoint. As a matter of fact, the rabbit stew lasted me three days and it tasted better as the week went on.

The recipe for my rabbit stew can be found below but a word of advice. The rabbit needs to be jointed and if you are unsure how you joint a rabbit, hop over to YouTube and watch a tutorial, it is that easy.

Anyway, enjoy:

Method

STEP 1: Heat oil in a frypan and lightly brown the meat. Place in the slow cooker.
STEP 2: Lightly fry onion and garlic, then add to he cooker.
STEP 3: Place remaining ingredients, except the peas, into the slow cooker. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
STEP 4: Add the peas half an hour before serving.

Brace Yourselves…..

It all started with a simple text message to friend:

Me: Hey man, can you get me any game?

Friend: Sure, what do you want?

Me: Pheasant or Venison…

Friend: I’ll bring some pheasants for you

………………

Flashforward to 36 hours later and my friend is at my house with 15 to 20 pheasants, complete with feathers, beaks and very much intact. This was my introduction to pheasants and following a 5 minute hands on tutorial from friend (and YouTube) I was breasting the pheasants in my kitchen, much to the dismay of my wife and kids.

You know what though, I was amazed at how easy it was to not only de-breast the pheasants but the skin comes off like a glove. It also wasn’t as gory or bloody as one would imagine, which was a massive relief.

Two hours later, all birds were prepped and I had a freezer full of pheasant breasts as well as some thighs…which are great in a curry.

Given this was my first time handling fresh game meat, I felt a massive sense of accomplishment. I had not only learned a new skill but I knew exactly where my food has come from, I knew that it was super fresh and I appreciated the work that went into the preparation of the bird.

This is exactly what I was wanting to achieve…a better understand and appreciation of the food that my family and I are consuming. I understand that not everyone agrees with hunting, shooting etc and that’s cool, everyone is entitled to their opinions but if I am going to cook and consume meat then at least I know it’s lived and roamed freely in the wild.

And that’s it really, my introduction to game meat and it was a breeze. Pheasants are such beautiful animals to look, you cannot deny that and when cooked right, they are truly delicious.

In the coming weeks and months I will be sharing my recipes and I hope you enjoy them too.

Cheers,

Keith

And so it begins…

Hi there,

My name is Keith and I have decided to create this blog about food but not just any old type of food as the main focus will be Field To Fork cuisine.

I am far from being a professional cook but I do love my food and I have always been eager to try my hand at creating simple and delicious dishes. As a father of two, dinner time can be a real pain and having fallen into a rut of convenience food, I had had enough and wanted to create real simple dishes, packed with flavour that doesn’t ruin the bank account.

Throughout my journey into the world of Field To Fork cooking, I will be sharing my ideas and recipes, using meat that has been locally sourced. You will hopefully be inspired to learn something new and feel free to get in touch with suggestions that you might have tried. I’m keen to try my hand at anything in the kitchen and for the best part, all meat used will be game or wildfowl.

You may be wondering “Why is this guy banging on about game meat”? The answer is quite simple really, for many years society have become reliant on convenience foods sold every supermarket, however, the mass production of the likes of cows, chickens, pigs etc has a massive impact on the earth and the carbon footprint left behind is huge, not to mention the poor conditions some of these animals are kept in. Whilst this may sound like a contraction, hear me out because it’s pretty simple.

Ever since mankind began, we have been hunter gatherers. We went into the wild, we caught an animal, we killed it and we provided our families with food to survive. I feel that by going back to the basics of where our food comes from and understanding the journey that your food has taken is key. It is a vital step for me, not only as someone who loves animals but as someone who wants to appreciate the food I am eating and that my family is eating.

I love food and I love to know where my food has come from. I’d be more inclined to eat venison from a deer that has roamed freely than a chicken that has never seen daylight and with this in mind, I have launched myself into the world of Field To Fork cooking.

That’s it for now but please follow my endeavours on Instagram and on my blog.

Cheers

Keith