Pigeon Pie, that was meant to be a hare pie?

  Well now, I had left Rheda on Friday morning, it was dark and I couldn't see into my deep freezer, I had grabbed a couple of frozen hare legs or so I thought!!!! They turned out to be 3 pigeons? Never mind it is game isn't it?

My Pigeon Pie

3 wood pigeons, drawn and plucked

2 carrots diced small

2 onions sliced

1 clove of garlic crushed and chopped

Enough puff pastry to make a pie lid (there will always be enough cuttings to decorate)

1 egg beaten

Sauce to cover

Sauce

Carcass and trimmings from 3 pigeons roughly chopped

1 small onion diced

1 parsley root diced

2 litres of good chicken stock (Linda’s was very good)

5 cloves

3 bay leaves

2 heaped table spoons of dried root vegetables (Getrocknete Suppengrün)

5 cm piece of cinnamon

5 juniper berries

2 teaspoons of game spice (see recipe)

20 ml of strong red wine (or port)

Buerre marnie to thicken (50-50 butter/flour)

Method

Wash and skin the pigeons and remove the breasts and legs, break open and remove the hearts (any who had a heart, bum, bum).

Break up the carcass. Heat a little oil in a pan

add the carcasses and trimmings, brown, add the stock, the dried veg, cinnamon, juniper berries and game spices. cover with water.

Lid on, cooking at a rolling boil, skimming any scum that rises to the surface.

Bubble up and push through a sieve, return stock to the pan, and thicken with a beurre manie (I made more than enough’ as I find that it freezes great and is fantastic for quickly thickening any sauce). Adjust seasoning.

Making the Filling

Making the Filling

Season the breasts, legs and hearts with salt and pepper, cutting each breast in half, soften the carrot, onion and garlic in oil, when translucent add the pigeon and colour. Add the wine and cook, DO NOT over cook, they should still be juicy.

Put the pigeon and veg into a pie dish, pour over the sauce. Cut some strips off the sheet of puff pastry to form a bed on the pie dish rim, brush the puff pastry strips with the egg

and place the rolled sheet of top pushing down to make a seal, cut off any overhanging pastry and fork around the edge. Cut out pretty leaves and other poncy things, placing these around a hole that you formed in the centre of the pie crust. Brush with the beaten egg.

Pop into a pre-heated oven at 220°C for 15 minutes.

We ate it with Brussel sprouts and creamy mash, all washed down with a bit of French dry red.

Fantastic, The yorkies are out of Lindas freezer, they had been their since coming back from England in June and she thought it as good a time as any to use them up. She does have some good ideas that lass!

A smashing Autumn meal at under a fiver including wine

Wirsingkohlrouladen-krautwickel, Savoy cabbage stuffed parcels with a twist

This is a smashing autumn/winter dish; it takes a bit of time, but well worth the effort.

This is an addapted old German recipe using an Eastern twist. Here in Germany Lamb mince will only be available from Turkish or speciality butchers and this is the first time that I have ever come across lamm-mett. The use of cumin makes a nice change, some use bread crumb to make the filling go a bit further (they say it makes it a bit looser, ahem).

You shall need:

A large head of Savoy cabbage, remove the large outer dark green leaves and shred, when you get to the lighter ones, remove carefully and blanch in boiling water for a couple of minutes until pliable. Run under cold water and then place on a board and cut out the centre vein.

Blanching the leaves in plenty of salted boiling water

Stopping the cooking process

Cut out the hard centre vein

Filling

500g of beef mince
200g of lamb mince or if in Germany try to get lamm mett (this is a ready spiced mince that is normally eaten raw on bread)
1/2 a large sweet onion diced
1 small leek sliced and diced
1 carrot diced
shredded cabbage
1 clove of garlic crushed and diced
1 dessert spoon of tomato puree
1 egg
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1 teaspoon of herb de Provence
1knife point of mustard powder
1 teaspoon of fresh chopped rosemary and thyme
Salt and pepper


Mix the two minces together.

left the beef mince, right the Lamb mett

soften the onion, leek, etc.

add to the mince and mix

adding the mustard powder along with the rest of the ingredients

Sauté the onion, leek, garlic, cabbage and carrot, add this to the mince, add the tomato puree, the egg, mustard and cumin and the herbs, get your hands in and give it a good mix, taste and adjust seasoning. Set to one side while you do the rest of the prep, (in the fridge in warm weather) to allow the herbs and spices to permeate the mixture)

Poaching sauce

500ml of vegetable stock (marigold or other good quality)
1 teaspoon of tomato puree
1 red pepper (capsicum), de-seeded and diced
1 large mushroom diced
Shredded outer leaves of the Savoy
¼ of the large onion
1 garlic clove crushed
25g diced speck (bacon)
1 sprig each of thyme and rosemary
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil for frying

Fry the speck in the oil and then soften the onion and garlic, when translucent add the mushroom, and red pepper, soften and add the sprig of thyme and rosemary.

Put Savoy leaf on a board place another on top but with the slit where the centre vein had been at 90 degrees to the first.

Place a good patty of mince in the middle and fold one side over the top, now fold the ends into the centre, finally wrap the remaining side over all. Now tie it together with kitchen string.

a bit like a spring roll

Heat some oil(or butter) in a frying pan and fry each of the parcels until golden brown all round.

Put the sautéed onions etc. in base of a large pan, place the parcels on top, dissolve the tomato puree in the stock, deglaze the pan with this and pour over the parcels. Bring to the boil reduce to a low heat, cover and poach for about about 45 minutes.

deglaze the frying pan with stock

The finished "Rouladen"

Don't forget to remove the string before serving!!!!!, it can be a bit chewy

Served with a mushroom ragu and potato, garlic and celeriac champ

The Wild Mushroom Ragu

200g of ceps (Steinpilz) picked over, cleaned and chopped
100g of Chanterelles (Pfefferling) , cleaned
100g of field mushrooms (Champions)
25g of diced speck
1/4 diced onion
1 clove of garlic crushed and chopped
1 table spoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of rosemary and thyme
100ml veg stock
25 ml of catering creme (this is called Rama Cremefine in Germany)
S&P to taste

Saute the speck, onions and garlic in the oil until the onions turn translucent, add the diced mushrooms until they start to give off their liquid, add the herbs and pour over the stock, add the creme, bring to the boil and adjust seasoning.

Pick over cut out any not too nice parts (maggots just love Ceps)

Dice into quite large pieces, crush and chop the garlic

chop the speck (bacon)

Saute the speck, garlic and onions, then add the diced mushrooms

add the stock

adding the creme

The finished ragu

An onion soup, French or otherwise

There had been a discussion on the www.wildfood.info website about caremalisation of onions for a onion soup in a slow cooker, I had never tried this so arriving back from an outing (boys weekend). I had followed this while away (the hotel complex had a full PC suite with full www connection and free) and while out on Saturday happened upon the Saturday market in Sudenburg, this is a not one of the most exciting sectors of Magdeburg.


But I came away with a small sack of onions and 2 kg of soup bones and breast, I think the rest of the lads did find it a little strange, touched their heads the forefinger and said "Die Spinnen die Briten"! (A saying from Asterix and Oberlix).

We had a fridge in our apartment, very nice indeed 3 double bedrooms and full lkitchen and living room with Sat Tele. I think that during the summer and school holidays these are family apartments (we had all inclusive). We had arrived on the Sambazug, this is a fantastic way to start your weekend, these weekends are done in the main for kegel, football clubs etc. The Sambazug has a bar and a dance compartment and it collects the weekend jolliers along the route, before eventually arriving at the Magdeburg Hbf (Main station).

But that has little or nothing to do with my onion soup other than that is where I got my ingredients and am now thought more of a crack-pot than before.

Ingredients.

2kg of onions
90-100g of butter
2 tablespoons of oil (neutral vegetable)
2 teaspoons of herbal sea salt (if you have any, if not table salt will do, at a pinch LoL)
1 teaspoon of brown sugar
a few sprigs of thyme
1 (level) teaspoon mustard powder
Fresh ground pepper to taste
Enough good beef stock to bring it to the consistancy that you wish (see below for recipe)

Caramelising the onions.

So on Sunday afternoon, I got home, unpacked my case and started to peel the onions, out came the moulinette and I shredded the onions into the base of my Cuisinart 6.5ltr slow cooker, I had put some oil into the base along with half of the butter (45g), I then picked some thyme added that along with some herbal sea salt from the Ile de Noirmoutier that I had got from the saline’s of Vendée last year. A sprinkling of brown sugar on top, the rest of the butter, the lid on and the SC switched on low and the timer onto 10 hours.



The onions and the moulinette



a bowl full of shredded onions

Adding the Sel de Mer with herbs

Topped with butter and thyme, lid on and leave to caramelise down.

Making the beef stock

I fried the beef bones before transfering to the oven to roast along with a browned onion, halved and the skin still on.

I sliced the white of a large leek a couple of carrots, some parsley stalks and teaspoon of pepper corns, put these into my pressure cooker. On top of this went the roasted bones and a slice of shin (the pressure cooker was pretty full) I poured 300ml of vegetable stock  over this and filled up with cold water, brought to the boil and skimmed, I did this at regular intervals, then put the lid on, brought up to blood and cooked for 1.5 hour. Cooled and left over night.



Giving the beef bones a quick brown along with the onion halves



The bones and onion halves into a roasting pan and into the oven



The leek, carrots, parsley stalks and a slice of leg



top up with water and add the herbs



pour in 300ml of vegetable stock (this one should be before the last photo)





Heat and when it comes to a rolling boil skim the scum as it rises to the top



Next day I decided that the onions could do with a little more browning so I switched the SC on for another 2 hours.


The final caramelised onions



Next morning I took the hardened dripping from the top of the cold stock and poured it all through a strainer, though I did make a nice beef sandwich with some of the shin meat, it had lost most of its flavour as it was meant to.

Remove the hardened dripping when cold

I next put the stock into a clean pot and added some more beef breast as I was also going to make some beef soup for the freezer. I boiled this up and lowered the heat allowing to simmer, skimming the scum off as it came to the top.

Making the soup

I washed the Pressure cooker and added the caramelised onions to the bottom, poured on a glass of Pinot Grigio (I happened to have a half a bottle in the fridge, I don't anymore) and let the alcohol boil off.

I slowly added the hot beef stock from the pot bubbling next to it; I now added a good bit of pepper and a 1/2 teaspoon of mustard powder (I will see later if it can take a bit more) (note, it did;-)).

I now had a wonderful Onion soup and a fantastic Beef soup. I fried a slice of sour dough rye bread in a little goose fat until crisp, piled it with a topping of Edam and Parmasan, quickly under the grill to melt a little and floated this on top of the soup.

Boy did it taste good and I found a use for the remainder of the pinot grigio

N.B. The soup can be made as thick or as thin as you wish the choice is yours, also the caramelisation of the onions can be done on top of the stove over a low heat, but in this case I wanted to see if they could be done successfully in the slow cooker. The 2 kg reduced down quite considerably (I did not weigh it afterwards and if the truth be known I didn't weigh it before, the 2kg  was a bit of a guess).

The quality of the beef stock makes all of the difference and it is really worth while making your own and concentrating it down.The use of the pressure cooker did speed up the making of stock and by adding another load of beef breast to the clarfied stock made this even more flavoursome. After making the onion soup, I stripped the breast meat of fat, gristle, sinus, fried a shredded leek and 2 carrots in a little oil, added this to the remainder of the stock and cooked for a few minutes, then added the breast meat and that was another smashing soup for the freezer. (I had to thin it down with water as the concentation had made it really powerful).

Here is a link to friend of ours website with his classic French Onion soup recipe.

http://souvigne.pagesperso-orange.fr/recipes/start230.htm

If your ever at a loss for a recipe, try having a look at Ians website (he also does a fantastic B&B, well worth a visit, it is one of the best in France (I would actually say the best that I have had the pleasure to stay at).

I would also like to thank the wildfood board members for sending me on this exploration into the unknown, it's always warming when something you have never tried before actually works!