What to do with leftover pigeon! Merci Elizabeth David.

I absolutely adore game, from duck to venison, to wild boar to capon, to hare to partridge. I spent my childhood holidays among Devon farmers every summer who, alongside raising and slaughtering their own sheep, cows, hens and chickens, also went hunting to provide game for local butchers. Kids growing up on farms seem to have such a better understanding of and respect for good food, the proper treatment of livestock and animals, and a greater pride in local produce.

Some of the best meals I've ever had were game based. A thick, almost syrupy wild boar stew in a hunter's retreat in the Andalucian mountains near Jerez, venison sausages with sage mash at home, rabbit and cider stew in Devon.

This weekend mum bought a brace of pigeons from a good game butcher in Sevenoaks. We stewed them in the oven and ate them with bitter cranberry sauce, nutty mushrooms sautéed in butter and swede mash.

Not wanting to throw the bones out, I made a rich pigeon stock with some chopped celery, carrot and onion, two tomato halves and a half tub of tomato passata as well as chopped fresh parsley. The result was a thick, rich, very meaty stock and I wasn't sure what to do next with it.

Enter Elizabeth David, doyenne of British cooking and absolute Expert (note the capital E) on French cuisine. I whipped out her bible of french provincial cooking and, since I had a pack of fresh beetroot in the fridge and had always wanted to cook it from fresh, I looked beetroot up in the book.

Beetroot consommé using a thick game broth. Perfect! My prayers answered!

I diced up three beetroot into small chunks and added them to the simmering pigeon broth for 30 minutes, before skimming the fat from the top of the broth, straining the broth to remove the beetroot and ending with a clear, ruby red, pungeant consommé with just a few beads of golden fat glistening on the top.

Served topped with a few chives, or some parsley and a dollop of crème fraiche and voilà!

Magnifique!

Fonduteria Lucifero - (ROME)

Fonduteria Lucifero

Via dei Capellari, 28 

00186 Rome

This tavern-like restaurant offers every type of fondue imaginable, from swiss, to chocolate, via bourguignonne, including the mouth-watering Piemontese special: A Tomino cheese fondue laced with the highly prized White truffle of Alba, which, in the week we dined there, was checking in at a cool 6 euros per gram. 
This is not a place to bring even open minded vegetarian friends, unless they want to be stuck munching on the delicious but limited range of vegetable appetizers as you wrap your teeth around any one of the delectable cuts of beef on the menu, all of which can also come sprinkled with a few shavings of said truffle… This is a strictly meat and cheese parlour.


We started with a generous antipasto of less common and therefore more interesting salamis, good quality mozzarella (both unusual for a relatively cheap Roman eatery) and a full platter of grilled, roasted, fired and stuffed fresh veggies all of which are laid out nicely on the bar as you walk into the joint. 
The portion was just right to leave room to actually finish the main course rather than feel guilty over leaving half of it.
Despite the host not showing us the wine list, claiming it was as long as the Bible and he could offer us the Reader‘s Digest format from memory, we didn’t get rumbled on the wine and enjoyed an excellent Nero D’Avola which conformed exactly to the type of wine we had asked to drink and at E 17.50, knocked the socks off value-wise of the usually acidic house wines most other places offer at around 11 euros a pop.


The only black note was the music, there’s enough good ambiance in the place to be able to do without any at all, or at least something befitting the simple whitewashed cavernous walls and checkered tablecloths, rather than the commercial radio pap, however, we were at the only table in the vicinity of the speakers and would’ve been quite undisturbed in any other part of the restaurant. I finished full, content, merry and not in the least bit stuffed or under the impression of having filled my gullet my face with ten tons of cow. All in all, a jolly night out!

Brodo di Francesco - Francesco's vegetable broth

At heart, every Italian man is a mummy's boy, and Francesco is no exception. If he's down with the snuffles, or it's been a cold day, or... even in the height of blistering Italian summer, there's few things Fra prefers than a bowl of steaming hot brodo, like his mamma makes, with a hunk of bread for dipping.

Reputed to have mystical healing properties (think of it as an Italian "Jewish chicken soup"), its piss-easy to make, tastes fantastic and probably does make you feel a whole lot healthier afterwards...

You will need the following in any quantities and proportions you prefer. We both like it with a generous dose of celery, I quite like it with leeks:

carrots

onions

leeks

zucchini

garlic

potatoes

flat leaf parsley

water

olive oil

vermicelli or small stars pasta

pecorino or grana cheese

Chop up your veggies, heat some oil in a pan and start by softening the onions, celery, parsley and garlic.

Add the carrots and potatoes, then finally the zucchini. Cover the lot with salted water and leave to simmer for about 40 minutes. Whip out your blender, or if you're feeling authentic and old-fashioned, a granny-style vegetable musher and blend all your veggies together until smooth and not too watery.

Bring to the boil again and add some vermicelli, or small pasta stars if you're really hungry or simply enjoy the soup as it is. Drizzle some olive oil on top, a grating of cheese and serve with good bread.

And no drinking cold liquids with it, or you'll have Fra to deal with...