Roasted pigeon with spinach and apple, onion marmalade, and pigeon sauce

Roasted pigeon with spinach and apple, onion marmalade, and pigeon sauce

“Mauro Uliassi from Senigallia is a great long-distance racer. He began with a muted pace in ’86 and the "Pizzeria da Mauro". Then in the 1990s, after fifteen years of teaching at the Hotel School of Senigallia, he upped his step and, with his sister Catia, opened the Uliassi restaurant.

The three stars have arrived at their own pace one per decade demonstrating a constant and growing quality: the first in 1995, the second in 2008, and the third in 2018. With him, the culinary traditions of the Adriatic coast are constantly being transformed through the widest of influences and through original dishes that serve to elaborate the historical offerings.
”

Bruno Vespa

The recipe

Ingredients for 4 persons

Onion Marmalade

320 gr apple cider vinegar
320 gr of grenadine
450 grams of sugar
420 gr of red wine
1750 gr of diced red onion
320 gr of butter

Pigeon Sauce

4 pigeon carcasses
4 pigeon livers
4 pigeon hearts
200 gr of chickpea broth (see below)
300 grams of red wine
1 spring onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 sprig of thyme
70 gr of extra virgin olive oil
100 gr of red wine vinegar
100 gr of balsamic vinegar
200 g of duck foie gras
1l liter of water
200 gr of very cold butter

Chickpea broth

2 kg beef broth
2 carrots
1 onion
1 celery stalk
100 gr extra virgin olive oil
1 small leek
2.5kg of beef tail
1 kg soaked chickpeas
29 gr salt
3 gr peppercorns
6 l water

The Apples

2 apples cut into peeled wedges and vacuum cooked with a little cinnamon at 87 degrees for 3 minutes

The Spinach

100 gr of spinach, stems removed, and quickly sautéed in a frying pan with a little salt and oil

The Pigeon

2 boneless pigeons, thighs divided from the breasts
Oil, as needed
Salt, to taste
2 cloves of garlic cut in half

Procedimento

Stew the onion slowly in a pan placed on a diffuser together with the butter (about 1 hour). Drain the butter and add all the other ingredients. Slowly simmer everything in the pan until you obtain a jam consistency (about another hour).

Brown the carcasses in oil, add the spring onion, garlic, thyme, foie gras, pigeon livers and hearts. Brown for 2 minutes and add the wine and vinegars. Let the liquids evaporate and add the chickpea broth and 1 liter of water. Bring to a boil and reduce by half.
Filter the stock, pressing well on the carcasses, and reduce again if necessary.
Whip with the cold butter and season with salt and pepper.

Sauté the meat in a pan with a little oil and let it cool.
Put all the ingredients in a large pan and simmer for about 12 hours very slowly.
Pass through a chinois and reduce by half again.

Season the breasts with the oil and salt and place them with a clove of garlic in a vacuum cooking pouch. Season the thighs of the wood pigeon in the same way and put them in another vacuum-packed bag. Cook the breasts in steam or with a Roner sous-vide at 62 gr x 25 minutes and the thighs at 65 gr in the same way for an hour and a half.

Al pass
Roast the wood pigeon breasts and thighs in a little oil.
Arrange a breast with a thigh on a plate and garnish with the apples, the spinach, the whipped pigeon stock and 2 dots of onion marmalade.