I was asked to provide a Bushcraft/Survival experience day for part of a Stag Do weekend.
The group took part in various fire making skills and techniques, knot tying, water filtration, shelter building, trying natural edibles like pine needle tea, dandelions, gourse flowers and some critters, as well as preparing a whole pigeon and using it to cook a campfire dish!
Cooking wild is a great opportunity to use great ingredients and cook over fire. You can start from the very beginning by collecting firewood and starting a camp fire in a controlled environment with safety in mind. Build up your fire to a good temperature insuring you have enough wood/fuel to finish cooking so you don’t have to leave the fire unattended while you look for more wood.
Our camp meal was a rustic one pot hearty dish, consisting of pigeon breast which people had a go of de-breasting the pigeons themselves. I always find the easiest way is not to pluck the bird, but to slide your fingers or thumbs under the skin, pull it back and expose the breast. You then use a sharp knife to carefully follow the breast bone to remove each side of the breast.
We added ingredients like chestnut mushrooms, bacon lardons, peppers, onions, black pudding, new potatoes, whole grain mustard, salt, pepper, garlic and a good glug of red wine. Cooked in a large pan over the fire until the wine had reduced and the pigeon was cooked but still nice and pink.
Served with some rustic bread the meal went down a treat and replenished all those calories from a day in the woods.
Remember to make sure the fire is completely out when done and “leave no trace”.
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Cooking Wild 