Pigeon with blackcurrants & bacon on toast

Name: Pigeon with blackcurrants & bacon on toast
Yield: Serves 2
Ingredients: watercress salad, to serve (optional); flaked sea salt and black pepper; 15 g cold butter, diced, plus extra for spreading on the bread; 75 g blackcurrants; 150 ml red wine; 4 thin rashers of rindless streaky bacon; 2 slices of good white rustic bread; ½ medium carrot, scrubbed and cut into short lengths; 2 teaspoons sunflower oil for cooking the pigeon carcasses, plus 1 tablespoon for rubbing on the pigeon breasts; a small bunch of young curly-leaf parsley; 600 ml cold water; 2 whole wood pigeons; ½ small onion, skin left on; 1 small celery stick, cut into short lengths

Preparation info

Serves
2

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Good Table

By Valentine Warner

Published 2013

About

Pigeons and blackcurrants are a splendid partnership. Seeing pigeons eat the fruit from the bushes has to be a recommendation from the bird itself. A good little dinner for two.

Ingredients

2 whole wood pigeons
a small bunch of young curly-leaf parsley
2 teaspoons

Dinner

Method

Cut the breasts and legs off the pigeons (or get a butcher to do it) and reserve the carcasses. Put the breasts on a plate skin-side up to help prevent them drying out and cover with clingfilm. Chop each carcass into three with a large, heavy knife and cut the parsley stalks from the leaves. Place a medium saucepan over a high heat. Add the oil and chuck in the pigeon carcasses with the legs, v