Barry
April 14th, 2005, 04:36 PM
Roasted Squab
1. Live close to at least one abandoned shack or some such that's been taken over by pigeons. If there's pigeons in your area, look around: They do have a home somewhere.
2. From Spring through Fall, regularly rob the nests of fully-feathered fledglings (the very young ones are nearly impossible to pluck completely).
Pigeon poop can cause some obscure horrible pulmonary disease, so protect yourself from it. I use a gas mask, but a wet bandanna over your mouth and nose would suffice to keep powdered pigeon poop out of your lungs. However you choose to kill them, make it quick and humane.
3. Here's the only hard part: Dry pluck the feathers and singe off the downy stuff you can't get off.
If you're going to freeze them until you accumulate enough for a meal, don't singe them. Go on to step #4 except for flattening them and then freeze them. Singe them after you've thawed them out and dried them (got that tip from a cookbook - singing apparantly makes the fat more likely to go rancid if you're not going to eat the bird right away).
4. Evicerate the bird, cut off its neck and its legs below the knee. Split the bird down the middle at its backbone (a knife will work, but tin snips or game shears work best). Spread the bird out, put something flat on top of it (I use the side of a meat cleaver), and give it a good solid whack with the bottom of your fist to flatten it out some.
5. Spread the birds breast-down on a roasting pan and put them in a pre-heated 400-degree oven for 10 minutes or so.
6. Turn them over, brush lightly with butter, sprinkle with a bit of paprika, and roast them breast-up for another 10 minutes or so.
Step 2 is disgusting, and step 3 is tedious. But the following steps are really quick and easy and the results will tell you why squab is considered a delicacy. Anyway, if you're going to keep the local pigeon population within reasonable limits, you might as well eat well doing it.
One of life's mysteries to me is why adult pigeons are dreadful to eat unless you have a fondness for shoe leather. I used to hunt Mourning Doves when I was a kid, which look an awful lot like a pigeon except for coloration, and roasted doves are delicious. I don't know why adult pigeons are lousy to eat. If anyone has a recipe for adult pigeons that works, I'd like to have it.
1. Live close to at least one abandoned shack or some such that's been taken over by pigeons. If there's pigeons in your area, look around: They do have a home somewhere.
2. From Spring through Fall, regularly rob the nests of fully-feathered fledglings (the very young ones are nearly impossible to pluck completely).
Pigeon poop can cause some obscure horrible pulmonary disease, so protect yourself from it. I use a gas mask, but a wet bandanna over your mouth and nose would suffice to keep powdered pigeon poop out of your lungs. However you choose to kill them, make it quick and humane.
3. Here's the only hard part: Dry pluck the feathers and singe off the downy stuff you can't get off.
If you're going to freeze them until you accumulate enough for a meal, don't singe them. Go on to step #4 except for flattening them and then freeze them. Singe them after you've thawed them out and dried them (got that tip from a cookbook - singing apparantly makes the fat more likely to go rancid if you're not going to eat the bird right away).
4. Evicerate the bird, cut off its neck and its legs below the knee. Split the bird down the middle at its backbone (a knife will work, but tin snips or game shears work best). Spread the bird out, put something flat on top of it (I use the side of a meat cleaver), and give it a good solid whack with the bottom of your fist to flatten it out some.
5. Spread the birds breast-down on a roasting pan and put them in a pre-heated 400-degree oven for 10 minutes or so.
6. Turn them over, brush lightly with butter, sprinkle with a bit of paprika, and roast them breast-up for another 10 minutes or so.
Step 2 is disgusting, and step 3 is tedious. But the following steps are really quick and easy and the results will tell you why squab is considered a delicacy. Anyway, if you're going to keep the local pigeon population within reasonable limits, you might as well eat well doing it.
One of life's mysteries to me is why adult pigeons are dreadful to eat unless you have a fondness for shoe leather. I used to hunt Mourning Doves when I was a kid, which look an awful lot like a pigeon except for coloration, and roasted doves are delicious. I don't know why adult pigeons are lousy to eat. If anyone has a recipe for adult pigeons that works, I'd like to have it.