Food fit for a prince – A chef’s blog

As Scottish Food Fortnight gets underway, Kieron Kelly, chef/owner of The Prince’s House Hotel, Glenfinnan, gives us some recipe ideas for the best local produce the Highlands has to offer…

A warm salad of woodpigeon and wild mushrooms with port reduction and walnut dressing

This is a fantastic dish which we serve at this time of year because it’s prime season for chanterelle mushrooms – they tend to be around from the beginning of July through September (although they were a bit later this year because it’s been so wet).

I first cooked it about 20 years ago as a starter in the Northern Chef of the Year competition, when I was working in Edinburgh, although it has adapted over the years to suit the ingredients at hand.

We forage for these mushrooms, which are in plentiful supply all around Glenfinnan and in pockets across the Highlands. They’re a quite distinctive yellow colour and easy to spot once you know what you’re looking for – however, I would urge you to be *very careful* when mushroom-picking for obvious reasons. Some are poisonous and many just don’t taste great. If in doubt, I’d recommend investing in a book on the subject with colour photographs, Richard Mabey’s Food for Free is good, and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has also written lots about foraging.

The Forestry Commission organises walks where they have an expert on-hand to steer you in the right direction. My sons and I went on one of these a couple of years ago and it was really useful.

If you don’t fancy picking your own mushrooms, or when they’re not in season, you can always substitute the chanterelles for other wild mushrooms, shiitake or chestnut mushrooms.

The pigeon is fairly widely available and I tend to get mine from local butchers and specialist game merchants – for example, Letterfinlays in Corpach. A lot of our salad is grown by a guy who lives in our village, John Whyte. We have a great relationship with him – our menu day-to-day depends on what he’s growing in his garden, and he’ll also grow more unusual things for us on request. If you’re not lucky enough to have someone like John nearby, I suppose you could make do with the greengrocer or farmers’ market!

The recipe

The recipe below is meant to serve four people as a starter but could, of course, be served as a main in larger portions. If you’re looking for a nice wine to go with it I’d recommend a young red Burgundy, New Zealand Pinot Noir or maybe a Cotes du Rhone, provided there’s no too much dressing on the salad as this can ruin the taste of the wine.

4 starter portions

2 Woodpigeons
2 sprigs thyme
2 bay leaves
2 shallots sliced
100g Chanterelles
100g lardons of smoked bacon
120g unsalted butter – diced and chilled.
120ml Port
50ml white wine vinegar
A good handful of salad leaves and herbs including
flat parsley, chives, chervil and rocket
35ml walnut dressing
borage flowers or herb flowers (optional)

METHOD

1. Make the dressing using 3 parts walnut oil, 1 part sunflower oil and 1 part white wine vinegar and a little salt. Pour into a bottle and shake to combine.

2. Dry fry the lardons until crisp, remove from the pan and keep warm.

3. Season the pigeons, place the thyme, bay leaves and shallots into the body cavities. Seal the birds in the pan used for the lardons and roast in a hot oven for about 10 minutes.

4. While the pigeons are cooking, pick over the mushrooms – removing any dirt and leaves/twigs etc. Wash and dry the salad mixture.

5. Remove the birds from the pan, allow to rest in a warm place. Add the Chanterelles to the pan and sauté briefly, season and keep warm with the pigeons.

6. Remove the breasts and legs, chop the carcasses and legs, return to the pan and brown over a high heat. Add the white wine vinegar and reduce till almost dry, add the port and reduce, strain into a clean pan and whisk in the butter – correct the seasoning.

7. To serve: – Toss the salad mixture in the dressing and arrange in the centres of 4 warm plates. Remove the skin and slice the pigeon breasts, arrange on top of the salad. Scatter the lardons, mushrooms and borage flowers (if using) around the salad, coat the sliced pigeon breasts with the port reduction and serve immediately.

http://www.glenfinnan.co.uk/

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