Rum and Thyme Pigeon Salad

On Saturday we popped to Saltburn farmers market, which seems to be going from strength to strength with more producers and more products available every month, amongst a huge haul of foodie delights I bought some pigeon breasts, which i’m a big fan of but hadn’t really cooked with before.

So when it came to cooking them last night I wasn’t 100% sure what to do with them, I knew I wanted to be quite healthy but still filling and I knew that I needed the meat to be pink in the middle and that I was going to make a salad, other than that I decided to see what I had kicking around in the kitchen and go from there.

It turned out really well, although I’d maybe leave out the walnuts next time and possibly add a tiny bit of crumbled crispy black pudding.

Serves 1

Ingredients

• 100g Pigeon breasts, skin removed
• 40g smoked bacon, diced
• Salad leaves (I used mixed salad, some radish, carrot, celery, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber too)
• 2 Walnuts, shelled and broken into pieces
• 25ml of balsamic vinegar
• 1tsp honey
• 1 tbsp rum (I used www.theeldoradorum.com as they’d very kindly sent me a couple of samples)
• salt
• pepper
• 1/2 tsp Thyme
• 1/2 tsp Rosemary

Method

1.  Place the pigeon breasts in a zip lock bag, add the thyme, rosemary, honey and rum, seal the bag and mix the ingredients well. leave to marinade for as long as you can.
2. Place your salad in a bowl along with the walnuts.
3. Heat a small frying pan, add the bacon and fry until crispy, remove the bacon from the pan and wrap in foil
4. Carefully place the pigeon in the pan (leaving the marinade in the bag) and fry for 90 seconds on each side, remove, season with salt and pepper and place in the foil with the bacon, wrap in a tea towel and leave to rest while you make the sauce.
5. Add the balsamic vinegar and the rest of the marinade to the pan and reduce down to a sticky sauce
6. Slice you pigeon and add it to the bowl with the salad along with the bacon, drizzle the sauce over and enjoy