Viva Brighton Issue #36 February 2016

ecipe
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Pigeon with blackberry
vinegar and a bacon crumb
Seamus Russell, Head Chef of MARKET, believes we’re
all over the ‘fine dining thing’ now. It’s ‘upmarket casual’ all the way…
People are much more food knowledgeable now. I
think a lot of it comes from TV; programmes like
The Great British Menu, Masterchef and even Come
Dine with Me are putting it right in people’s faces
five times a week, so they’re becoming much more
intelligent when it comes to food. Because of that,
eating out has changed massively. Ten years ago,
if you had a chef explain everything in a dish to
you, you might not have understood a lot of what
they were saying, but you’d probably have nodded
your head anyway. People don’t want to be spoken
down to anymore. They want to eat what they
want to eat, not just what the chef wants to cook.
If I get an idea for a new dish when I’m lying
in bed, I can’t sleep. The worst is when I’ve just
got home after a 15-hour shift and I’ll think of
something, and then that’s it, I have to keep testing
it out until I get the balance right. Something
will just pop into my head, maybe I’ll have seen
something out and about and I’ll get an idea.
Once I get it right I’ll write it down in my book at
home, or in the notepad on my phone if I’m out,
with ideas and drawings of how I’m going to plate
it up. There’s some stuff that I’ve figured out now
but it won’t be in season for a few months, so I’m
just waiting for the season to change.
Recipe: To make the blackberry vinegar, crush
fresh blackberries into a pan and just cover with
rice wine vinegar. Bring to the boil. Take the pan
straight off the heat and cover, then leave to cool
to room temperature. When it has cooled, pass the
mixture through a sieve and place over a low heat,
until it has reduced by a third.
For the bacon crumb, stretch out rashers of
streaky bacon onto an oven tray. Cook at 180°C
for 15 minutes, straining off the fat once every five
minutes. Make sure you keep the fat, it’ll be used
later on in the dish. When the bacon is crisp, take
it out of the oven and let it dry off. Then freeze it.
Once the bacon is frozen, blitz it to a crumb.
To prepare the pigeon, first take the bird down to
the crown [ie no wings or legs]. Vacuum bag* it
with a little of the bacon fat from earlier and cook
it at 62°C for 12 minutes.
When you’re ready to plate up, put the pigeon in
a water bath* at 50°C for ten minutes. Meanwhile,
place some fresh berries in a bowl and dress with
the blackberry vinegar. In a separate bowl, mix a
little vinegar with some of the bacon fat. When
the pigeon is ready, place the breast on the plate
first. Spoon the dressed berries over the pigeon
breast and dress the plate with the fat and vinegar
mixture. Finally, sprinkle some of the bacon
crumbs over the dish.
To go with this dish, co-owner Kate Alleston recommends
a (Portuguese) Dão Tinto. She says: “It’s
a very typical Portuguese wine, it’s got depth and
texture, it’s earthy and there’s a hint of chocolate.”
As told to Rebecca Cunningham. Photo by Lisa Devlin,
cakefordinner.co.uk
*Don’t have the equipment? See our website for
alternative methods
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