Dove Recipes - How to Cook Doves and Pigeons | Hank Shaw (2024)

FAQs

What is the best way to cook a dove? ›

Grilled or Barbecued Dove Recipes. Grilling is by far the best way to cook doves. It's the only way to get the skin crispy without overcooking the breast meat, which should be eaten medium, i.e., still pink.

Since dove is a red-meat migratory bird, it is best served medium-rare. A proper roast should crisp the skin but never cook the meat inside past medium-rare. I take the time to age and pluck my birds for a few days prior to roasting, too.

Most Texans let their game meat soak in milk to get the gamey taste out. Place your dove breasts in a bowl of milk in the fridge for at least two hours. In another bowl, mix flour with garlic powder, salt and pepper (add as much as your taste buds allow). In a skillet or fryer, add vegetable oil and let it get hot.

Making homemade food for doves is as easy as collecting wild grass and weed seeds in a paper bag throughout the summer from fields near your home. Place your cupped hand below the seeds on the grass stalk and pull upward and seeds will readily release into your hand.

Heat the oil in a casserole dish over a medium heat, then sauté the onion, carrot and garlic until softened. Add the pigeon and brown for 3 to 5 minutes. Sprinkle the flour in and stir well. Add the wine and stock, season generously, then increase the heat and bring to the boil.

If you cook a dove breast until it is medium-rare, and I'm talking no more than 130 to 135 degrees, it doesn't taste the least bit funky. It's actually very mild and much like any other lesser-cooked dark-fleshed game meat. If you cook it past medium-rare, it starts to get agamey edge to it.

The word "squab" probably comes from Scandinavia; the Swedish word skvabb means "loose, fat flesh". The term formerly applied to all dove and pigeon species (such as the wood pigeon, the mourning dove, the extinct-in-the-wild socorro dove, and the now extinct passenger pigeon,) and their meat.

A lot of hunters will breast out a dove. That gets 90% of the usable meat on a Mourning dove. However, the thighs and drumsticks are fantastic too. Follow this recipe and you can fry up whole doves in no time, making a tasty treat for your family and friends.

Brine the dove breasts in the refrigerator, for a minimum of 2 hours, or ideally overnight. Remove from the brine and pat dry. With a sharp knife separate the two breast lobes from the breastbone. Place each lobe between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and pound them GENTLY with a meat tenderizer (mallet).

Information. The distinct game flavor of either birds or animals will be milder after soaking the meat overnight in the refrigerator in either a salt or vinegar solution. 2. Vinegar solution - 1 cup per quart of cold water.

Should you soak dove before cooking? ›

Another tactic is soaking the breasts for several hours in a brine solution (1 cup of salt to 1 gallon of water). That closes the pores and helps retain a dove breast's natural moisture. Long cooking times can make an already dry meat even drier. Top dove cooks debone the breasts, producing two breast halves.

Storage tips: For immediate use, birds should be stored in the refrigerator at 40 °F or less and used within three days. For long-term storage, the whole cleaned carcass or individual parts may be frozen at 0 °F or lower.

If you wish, you can cut open and clean out the gizzard, so you can eat its meat also. You can also remove what is left of the trachea if you wish; part of it came off with the head. It looks something like a worm; it's edible but tough and probably hard to digest. Cook the bird.

Wild pigeons and doves eat a variety of grains, seeds, greens, berries, fruits, and will occasionally eat insects, snails and earthworms.

Dark Meat: Waterfowl, Grouse, and Dove. With wild birds, generally, the darker the meat looks, the stronger it will taste. Some people call this strong flavor “gamey,” and it's not always well-received.

Dove is a lean meat that has a high protein content and tastes great. The lure to eat dove comes partly from the act of harvesting the bird in the wild. It is organic, free-range meat, depending on how good of a shot you are.

While dove hunting is fun and dove is a nutritious meat, if it is not handled correctly when it is harvested it could become contaminated with bacteria which can lead to people who consume the meat getting sick.

An average adult weighs 4.5 oz. Since the dove's drumstick is less than an inch long, the breast meat is all that's used. Each breast fillet is about as long as my thumb, and weighs one ounce or less before cooking.