Recipe: Pigeon and bean burger

Rosie presents a easy yet seriously tasty piegon and bean burger recipe! With pigeons in season all year round, you can enjoy in winter & on a BBQ in summer!

I always have a few tins of pulses handy for emergencies – just in case my three fully-stocked freezers don’t contain enough sustenance to satisfy hungry visitors – and I don’t believe the ‘best before’ dates on tinned food, but in my larder there were tins of beans that were well past it and as you all know by now, I can’t waste anything. The pigeon breasts were ready to cook, too, so I came up with a bit of off-the-cuff culinary DIY, and combined them all to come up with this burger recipe. It’s amazing what you can make out of scraps, with just a little imagination and the help of some herbs and spices.

A couple of tins of assorted beans and some minced pigeon breast made four burgers, to be frozen for the rare occasions when I can’t be bothered to cook from scratch, and I ate one of them for my evening meal, with a baked potato covered in grated cheese, and some salad. Fantastic, and because I’d had most of the ingredients for quite a while, it felt like free food. It didn’t kill me – I’m here to tell the tale – so the newspaper report a while back about a tin of corned beef from 1947 still being edible was probably true!

You can hide a cube of strong cheese in the middle of the burger, for a bit of zing, or add some finely chopped chili, and you can also barbecue these little patties, alongside the more traditional burgers, sausages and chicken – they’re a bit different and a really tasty addition.

Ingredients:

* Assorted tinned beans

* Two pigeon breasts, minced

* A couple of shallots, or an onion, minced

* Egg

* Panko – or just breadcrumbs

* Seasoning

Method:

1) Mash the beans. Don’t use a blender, you don’t want a paste.

2) Mince the pigeon breasts and the onion.

3) Place into a bowl.

4) Add a handful of breadcrumbs. Panko will give you crunch.

5) Stir in the egg and seasoning.

6) Chill for half an hour.

7) Form into patties.

8) Fry gently for about three minutes each side, then serve with whatever you fancy – mashed spuds and peas, or salad, or in a bun.