Pigeon Deconstructed and Ferrous Fowl

Since pigeon shares some similarities to other small birds that are consumed, I wanted so show a few pictures of the prep involved. Here’s the bird, tiny heart and liver prior to deboning or carving it.

Here’s picture of the legs and claws. For a classic French presentation, cut off all but the longest claw, hold it as straight as possible and dip it into boiling water to clean it.

Stuff the leg with your farce (stuffing of choice) and while keeping it still straight wrap it in caul fat (see earlier post) or cooking plastic then cook it in boiling water. You then sauté the leg in a small amount of hot oil to brown the skin and serve it with the claw pointing to the sky.

Here is the dark red breast meat similar to quail in color. On the last pigeon I cooked, the breasts weighed 45 grams each or 90 grams total or just over 3 ounces. This is the quantity that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggests as a serving size for poultry, although they somehow they fail to include portion sizes for pigeon.

However, I believe it's more important to judge a proper serving size based on the quality of the meat in terms of saturated fat, omega-3 fats and other nutrients.

For example, since salmon is a high quality nutrient dense protein, I tend to recommend 5-6 ounces (I’m assuming of course, this portion is not battered, deep fried and served in a buerre blanc sauce).

I’m told by my chefs, that in France, 150 grams or 5.3 ounces of meat, fish or poultry is an appropriate sized serving for an entrée.

Nutritionally, pigeon is a very ferrous fowl with an iron content that exceeds beef. I checked this on the USDA nutrient database to make sure. Protein amounts are similar, but here's differences for 90 grams of the following:

Pigeon: Calories 138 / Iron 4mg / Total fat 7g / Saturated fat 2g
Chicken breast: Calories 100 / Iron .6mg / Total fat 1.2g / Saturated fat .3g
Chicken thigh: Calories 108 / Iron 1.0mg / Total fat 4 / Saturated fat 1g
Lean Beef: Calories 132 / Iron 1.4mg / Total fat 4.5 / Saturated fat 2g

So perhaps when I advise patients with iron deficiencies, we should discuss eating more pigeon or I could make it more appetizing by using the French pronounciation and suggest they eat more "roasted PeejeeOwn".