Pigeon Casserole in Red Wine Sauce

Tina and Dave's Note:

This comes from cookitsimply.com. The sauce is absolutely gorgeous! I added a dash of lemon juice before cooking this in a tagine, in the oven (2+ hours @ 325f) - perfect! The recipe says to cook it in a pan on the hob so feel free to do it that way!

• Total Time: 1 hrs 50 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 4 ounces bacon , diced
• 1 ounce butter (50 g)
• 4 pigeons or 2 wood pigeons
• 4 medium onions , skinned and chopped
• 4 medium carrots , peeled and chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
• ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
• salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 1 ounce flour
• 300 ml meat stock
• 100 ml red wine

Directions:

1. Fry the diced bacon for 2 minutes, add the butter (I used 1oz of butter and a dash of olive oil) and the pigeons and brown quickly on all sides.
2. Remove and add the chopped vegetables, herbs, salt, freshly ground pepper and flour. Mix well.
3. Replace the birds, pour on the stock and the wine, bring to the boil and simmer very gently for 1 1/2 hours, until the birds are tender.
4. Serve with red currant jelly.

Reviews

[Chef #761248]

Delicious but simple! Both my 24-year-old daughter (particularly) and my wife were quite knocked out by the taste of the sauce, made with a standard Cote du Rhone. I forgot the bay leaf (but that didn't matter) and I used fresh thyme. Probably the most important decision was to use a half each of beef and chicken stock cubes - neither too strong or too anodyne! I cooked it on the hob and 2 hours seemed right. Feeling lazy, I just served it with sauté potatoes. I didn't bother with the redcurrant jelly.