Dinner Diary - Pigeon Breast and Mixed Up Mash

Pigeon is the tastiest meat you can get. Its more or less perfect - rich, moist, low fat, easy to cook fast and serve red or you cook it slowly and it holds its form. And best of all, it is delicious and cheap. Stewing whole birds on the bone is great but, often, just using the breasts is better.

I had a whole pack of a dozen breasts from Radmore Farm Shop in Cambridge and I was making pigeon and wild mushroom pie for tomorrow (more of that to follow!), so I put four breasts aside for dinner.

Now, you can't just eat meat of course. So I sliced up pumpkin, potato and celeriac and put them into a dish in the microwave. While they were cooking I seasoned the pigeon breasts with lots of salt and pepper and cooked them in a hot frying pan with just a splash of oil, until they were good and browned on the outside and still red in the middle. While they were resting, that gave me time to add a splash of wine to the pan, a little cream, and the smallest dash of soy sauce (thats a secret, don't tell anyone) to make a sauce.

The pumpkin, celeriac and potato were mashed with lots of pepper and some butter, and the pigeon sliced and put on top with the sauce, and a big pile of cabbage to finish off the dish.

Wholesome and utterly delicious, I can't begin to describe how good pigeon is cooked this way. And yes, I'm going on, but pigeon is almost the perfect meat. Its cheap, delicious (shot as a pest for pities sake), low fat and more or less the most versatile meat there is. And with the mixed mash being rich, sweet and filling, this was the perfect dish for a cooler evening.