Rolled pigeon

The recipe we present today, one of the twenty that have reached the finals in the fourth edition of Premio Birra Moretti Grand Cru, is complex starting from its very name: it is defined as a "mini menu" by its creator too. That is to say Giovanni Sorrentino, chef at restaurant Vinile in Salerno. This is how he explains it.

I present a mini-menu that starts with a journey across strong flavours such as garlic, the spicy and fresh note of tarragon, the delicate and creamy character of malt yogurt, and, finally, the sweetness of the pigeon. The perfect match is a strong beer with sweet, spicy notes of malt and toasting. Garlic and tarragon? They are so distant in flavour, so close when it comes to origins. They come from Siberia and North-East Asia, with delicateness and character, with freshness, their contrasts harmonised by Birra Moretti La Rossa.

Pigeon, the Orient, violet and three times malt – Rolled pigeon with garlic and tarragon glazed with Birra Moretti Doppio Malto, roasted purple potatoes and buffalo milk yogurt with barley malt

Recipe for 1 person

INGREDIENTS
1 rolled pigeon (breast and wing)
20 g butter
30 g tarragon
1 garlic clove
2 purple potatoes
50 g Birra Moretti Doppio Malto
30 g fresh and skimmed buffalo milk yogurt
50 g grains of organic barley malt
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
salt to taste

METHOD
for the malt yogurt
Cook the malt grains in lots of water, blend and strain the blanched malt, add it to 30 grams of buffalo milk yogurt and keep in the fridge.

for the rolled pigeon
Soften the butter and mix the tarragon with a pinch of salt, put the supreme between two layers of cling film. Softly beat it with a steak hammer. Stuff the pigeon breast with the butter and tarragon, roll it in the cling film so as to form a cylinder and place it in a chiller for 20 minutes. Remove the cling film and sear the pigeon in a pan, only on the side with the skin, together with the garlic and the extra virgin olive oil.
Put it into a vacuum pack with the garlic clove used when cooking and cook at a low temperature of 57°C for 25 minutes. Cool quickly in water and ice.

for the potatoes
Cut the purple potato in cubes 2 cm high, put into a vacuum pack and cook at a low temperature of 60°C, for 40 minutes. Cool quickly in water and ice.

for the finishing
Roast the potato cubes in a very hot pan with a drop of oil and keep warm. Sear the supreme of pigeon in a pan on all sides and leave to rest on a grill, keeping it warm, for the same amount of time as the cooking. Remove the grease from the pan used for the pigeon, wet with Birra Moretti Doppio Malto and reduce it on a high flame until you obtain the texture of a syrup. Spread three teaspoons of malt yogurt on a plate. Place the roasted potato cubes on top, alternating them with the slices of rolled pigeon. Pour the beer glaze and decorate with a few leaves of dried tarragon.