Viva Brighton Issue #66 August 2018

RECIPE
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Wood pigeon breast and morels
Fire and wild forager Mark Andrews
I grew up in the countryside in the north of
England, as wild as it gets, where I spent long
days outdoors building dens, exploring. I became
obsessed with Ray Mears, Native American
culture and living off the land.
In my early twenties, I moved to London where
I joined a band, ran club nights and a music
venue. It was the whole other extreme of what
I do now - not a sustainable lifestyle - and so I
built a campervan, travelled around and tried to
find myself again.
I met a girl whose father lived in the mountains
in France and he introduced me to mushroom
foraging. When I came home, I set up a
really nice life, sourcing mushrooms, going to
restaurants and trading what I found in exchange
for exquisite meals. It was a wonderful, nomadic,
food-and-drink based life, which I loved.
I spent three successive autumns travelling
alone like this through the Scottish Cairngorms
and Northern Europe. I saw inside some nice
restaurants and gradually got more into cooking.
The concept for Fire & Wild evolved as I went
along. I now host outdoor dining experiences
for which guests are picked up and taken to a
secret wild location, each event taking place in
a different setting. I intend to take these further
afield, to journey to properly wild spaces in
Northern Europe for wilderness dining and
camping trips. I spend a lot of time travelling
around, researching.
I have a crew of friends to help. I wouldn’t be
able to serve five-course tasting menus in the
woods by myself, and that’s the idea, really. The
vision is to tell a little story of the landscape with
food, creating dishes that feature native creatures
and plants found where we are dining.
I’m really into Nordic food and a lot of that
is about the preservation of ingredients. This
dish combines things from different seasons
- hazelnuts from last autumn, this season’s
cherries and wood pigeons I shot this morning.
The other important ingredient is morels - the
holy grail of fungi foraging. Morels are a spring
mushroom but their flavour intensifies when
dried. The jus is a concentrated game stock with
red wine, homemade elderberry vinegar, thyme,
cherries and garlic, all reduced to a moreish,
sticky syrup.
Ingredients: 4 wood pigeon breasts; 10-15 dried
morels; 4tbsp hazelnuts, chopped; 2tbsp chives,
snipped; watercress; cherries. For the jus: 100ml
red wine; 150ml dark stock; 50ml fruit vinegar;
100g butter; large sprig of thyme leaves; 2
handfuls of cherries, chopped; 2 cloves of garlic,
crushed; 2 shallots, finely chopped; butter.
Method: Cover the pigeon breasts with oil,
season and leave to marinate in the fridge
for a couple of hours. Sauté the shallot and
garlic in butter and then add the rest of the jus
ingredients and simmer for 10 mins. Strain and
reduce further until thick and glossy, season to
taste. Rehydrate the morels in boiling water for
20 mins then transfer to a pan and cook until
reduced. Add butter and sauté until crispy. Toast
hazelnuts and then sear the pigeon in a hot pan,
2-3 minutes each side and leave to rest. Assemble
and serve immediately with a nice red.
As told to Chloë King
fireandwild.co.uk
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