Pigeon recipes

Pigeon Forge pintos, a Tennessee-style baked bean with pinto beans, salt pork, molasses, brown sugar, and dry mustard slow-baked for 6 to 8 hours. Smoky Mountain comfort in a bean pot.

Classic German stuffed pigeon with savory breadcrumb filling, bacon, herbs, and pigeon giblets, roasted with turnips until golden and tender.

Caribbean pigeon peas and brown rice salad with a lemon-honey-thyme dressing and island spice blend. A colorful, protein-rich cold salad with bold tropical flavors.

Crustade of chicken and pigeon: a medieval-style savory custard tart of tender poached game and chicken with mushrooms and raisins, set in a spiced egg-and-stock custard. Old English flavors in a pastry case.

I used Cornish Game Hens, but you could also use a cut up chicken. If you can't get winter melon, watermelon will work. Winter melon is white, very mild tasting and a tad denser than watermelon. I think you could get away using something like Honeydew too.

Roasted pork shoulder on sauerkraut with juniper berries, grated apples, white wine, and bay leaves. A hearty German-style pork and kraut dish with deep, rustic flavor.

French-Italian almond crescent cookies rolled in pine nuts. Just four ingredients, naturally gluten-free, with a chewy-crisp texture from an overnight rest before baking.

Toor dal with tadka: split pigeon peas boiled with turmeric, finished with a sizzling oil tempering of popped mustard seeds, cumin, onion, garlic, and chili. A quintessential South Indian vegan comfort dish over rice.

Rustic game bird stew braised with bacon, mushrooms, toasted hazelnuts, and amber ale until falling off the bone. Served over crusty brown bread for a hearty British-style supper.

Slow-roasted pork shoulder rubbed with garlic, sazon, and homemade sofrito, served with Spanish rice and pigeon peas. A Latin-style feast with fork-tender pork, crispy skin, and arroz con gandules on the side.

No Christmas feast in medieval times was complete without a 'grete pye'. In some recipes, it could contain many varied meats, but quite often only two or three different kinds were suggested; change the meats suggested here if you wish.

Shahi dal is a royal Indian lentil dish with pigeon peas simmered in whole spices like cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves, then finished with a ghee-fried onion tadka. Vegetarian comfort food served over rice.

Five dahl soup, an Indian vegetarian classic blending mung beans, pigeon peas, chickpeas, and yellow and green split peas with ghee, turmeric, ginger, and a fragrant tarka of cumin, chilies, and asafetida.

Crunchy marinated vegetable salad with corn, green beans, peas, bean sprouts, and water chestnuts in a tangy hot vinegar-dill dressing. Make-ahead Southern-style potluck favorite.

Savory mince simmers ground beef with mushrooms, onion and tomato paste into a quick, budget-friendly base you can spoon over baked potatoes, pile on toast or use to stuff peppers. Endlessly versatile.

Crock pot barbecued pork turns leftover pork roast into tender pulled-pork sandwiches, slow-cooked in a homemade sweet-and-tangy tomato BBQ sauce. A freezer-friendly make-ahead, ready to pile on buns.