@blundering-dev yum

With a lot of Heinz Ketchup. And a red wine. Watching your date going hard on a wing.

@snek give me a real working pigeon dinner recipe that uses a lot of tomato ketchup, is marinated, and has the same crust as a fishstick. I see a pigeon.

@retoor Say less. Here is "Pigeon Sticks à la Heinz" - a real, working dinner recipe that is marinated, drowning in tomato ketchup, and sporting an honest-to-god fishstick crust.

Sourcing first (the "real working" part): do not grab a city pigeon off the sidewalk - that's a biohazard roulette of salmonella, mites and whatever they pecked. You want squab (farm-raised pigeon), which is what every fancy French cookbook means by "pigeon." It's dark, tender meat, basically a tiny duck. Butcher or online, 2 birds feeds one hungry date.

The marinade (ketchup-forward, obviously):

• 1 cup Heinz tomato ketchup (the whole point)
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp smoked paprika
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• ½ tsp cayenne (optional, but you're not a coward)
• Black pepper

The fishstick crust:

• ½ cup flour (add a pinch of onion powder + salt - that's the secret frozen-fishstick smell)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 cups panko breadcrumbs
• Neutral oil for shallow frying

Method:

1. Slice the squab breasts into fishstick-shaped strips, ~2cm thick.
2. Marinate 2-4 hours in the fridge. The ketchup's acid + sugar + the soy does double duty: tenderizes and flavors.
3. Drain, pat dry (wet meat = soggy crust). Dredge flour → egg → panko, pressing the crumbs on hard so it gets that craggy fishstick armor.
4. Shallow fry at 350°F (175°C), 2-3 min per side, until deep golden. Panko burns fast, so keep the oil moderate, not ripping hot.
5. Finish in a 400°F (200°C) oven until internal temp hits 140°F (60°C). This is non-negotiable: squab is dark meat like duck - serve it medium. Past ~155°F it turns into liver paste and the whole date is ruined. Rest 5 minutes, then serve.
6. Serve with a lot of Heinz ketchup on the side (warm it up with a splash of the marinade - trust me), a bottle of red (Pinot Noir or Beaujolais, light enough for dark meat), and watch your date go hard on a wing.

Fun fact to impress said date: squab has been on menus since the Romans, and one bird per person is the classic portion - they're small. So buy four. 🕊️🍅

Some of us already do.
/jk
Jokes aside, Poles have this dish called 'Gołąbki' /* EN: Little pigeons. */ that consists of, IIRC a meatball wrapped in a leaf of whatever the fuck it is. !a real pigeon meat, though. No clue why those are named like that, but providing as a fun fact.
The meatball is tasty, especially w/ the gravy. Personally, I find the leaf thing to be terrible, though, so I never ate it. I think the smell wasn't exactly pleasant, either. Anyway, general idea... tastes better than it smells. Eat the meat, leave the leaf... /* Unless you're into that thing. */

@snek. I'm curious. How is your pigeon recipe different from that of the Poles?

@D-04got10-01 Great question - and the short version is: mine has pigeon in it, theirs has pigeon only in the name. The Polish dish is a tribute act; mine is the real deal dressed up as something else. Full comparison:

The meat

• Gołąbki: ground pork/beef (+ rice) - zero actual pigeon. The bird is purely etymological.
• Pigeon Sticks à la Heinz: actual squab (farm-raised pigeon), sliced into strips. Real pigeon, as requested by the post.

(1/4)

The "pigeon" naming, since you wondered
Gołąbki = "little pigeons" (gołąb = pigeon/dove). No one's 100% sure why, but the two main theories: (1) the rolled bundles look like plump little birds sitting in a nest - pigeon breast shape; (2) stuffed pigeons on cabbage leaves were a fancy aristocratic (originally French) dish, and the peasants imitated the look with cheap cabbage and got the name as a bonus. So the Poles named a cabbage roll after a bird they couldn't afford. My recipe does the reverse: I take the actual bird and make it look like a fishstick. We've come full circle.

The armor

• Gołąbki: blanched cabbage leaf, rolled burrito-style - soft, braised, surrenders to the fork.
• Mine: flour → egg → panko crust, fried till craggy and golden. Crispy outside, dark-meat inside.

(2/4)

The cook

• Gołąbki: slow-simmered/baked in tomato sauce for 1-2 hours. Low and slow; everything ends up well-done and melty.
• Mine: fast - 2-3 min per side shallow fry at 350°F, then a quick oven finish to an internal 140°F. Squab is dark meat like duck; past ~155°F it turns into liver paste. The Poles would have a heart attack at a medium bird, but for real pigeon it's non-negotiable.

The sauce

• Gołąbki: the rolls cook in a tomato sauce (or mushroom gravy), and the sauce is the point - you spoon it over, add sour cream or mashed potatoes.
• Mine: ketchup does double duty as marinade and dip (warmed with a splash of marinade). The stick is the point; ketchup is the wingman. Plus soy, vinegar, garlic, paprika, brown sugar - a lot more aggressive than the Poles' gentle marjoram-and-tomato vibe.

(3/4)

The rice

• Gołąbki: rice mixed into the filling, stretches the meat, makes it a complete peasant meal.
• Mine: no rice - the sticks are 100% bird. Rice would just dilute the pigeon.

The date factor

• Gołąbki: grandma food, best eaten on a Sunday with family and a plate of potatoes.
• Mine: finger food designed for watching someone "go hard on a wing" with a Pinot Noir.

So: same ketchup/tomato family, opposite philosophy. They made a cheap cabbage roll and named it after a luxury bird; I took the luxury bird and made it into cheap comfort food. Both are "pigeon" dishes - just one of them is honest about it. 🕊️🍅

(4/4)

The post says "pigeons" but the recipe thread is about farmed squab. Feral city pigeons carry parasites and heavy metals, and taste like the dumpster they live in. Eat one off a sidewalk and you'll wish you'd stuck with the ketchup.

There are some massive pigeons round here. They shit all over my garden. I have an air rifle.

However I'm pretty sure the reason they're massive is because they've been feasting on the huge pile of shit in the neighbours' garden. They've got at least two old mattresses, and a bunch of blue bags full of fuck knows what.

There's a limit to what you can achieve with prunes and juniper berries.

Eating downtown pigeons means consuming whatever they pecked near the dumpster, so if you want squab, buy it from a farm instead.