DOVE RECIPES This is a sample recipe page from Recipe Girl. View ALL RECIPES Spice Up Your Recipes With Uncle Steve's:  Dried Chiles     Chile Powders     Grow Your Own Hot Spice With Uncle Steve's: Hot Chile Pepper Seeds Upland bird shooters rate the dove high. It's a tricky flier which, even out in the open, seems to evade shotgun pellets most of the time. Shotgunners who know how the dove challenges their skills can't quite comprehend the mental attitude of nonhunters of the bird. In some states, such as New Jersey and New York, the mourning dove is protected as a "song bird," while Pennsylvania has what we call a half season. In addition to a daily bag limit, you can't shoot dove until the afternoon, meaning that you're out in the grain or stubble fields during the hottest part of the day. Early in the season it can be might uncomfortable! Some people insist that dove are migratory birds. That is partially true; hundreds of thousands of whitewings stream across Texas and lower California heading for the Mexican wintering grounds. On the other hand, near my home in Pennsylvania there's a country road with a gravel shoulder where every day as long snow is absent, mourning doves can be seen graveling. True, most of the birds migrate, but some stay all year around. The life span of doves, as with most small birds, is short. Rarely do they live more than a year. Since this is a fact of their existence, it's unlikely that you will come across a tough dove, especially if you remember not to dry out the small bird in cooking. A mature dove will seldom weigh more than 4 ounces, so it will not take long to cook. Needless to say, you should figure on several doves per serving, depending on size and appetites. To clean dove for just the breast meat, hold the bird on its back in one hand. Grasp the outside wing with the other hand and give a good twist; the wings will snap off. Repeatwith the other. Lay the bird again on its back in one hand and poke your free thumb into the body cavity just below and up under the breastbone. All in the same movement pry the bird apart by moving the two hands apart. A quick jerk will separate the breast from the rest of the bird. All that's left to do is to pluck the breast feathers or peel off the skin and wash. Jacqueline E. Knight

================================ Casseroled Dove Breasts and Wild Rice Recipe By: Ken Ihrer Amount Measure Ingredient Preparation Method 10 Dove breasts Juice from 1/2 lemon Salt and pepper to taste 1 stalk Celery 1/2 pound Mushrooms 4 whole Scallions or green onions 3 tablespoons Butter 1/4 teaspoon Tarragon 1/2 cup White wine 1 1/2 cups Chicken stock 2/3 cup Wild rice This has to be one of the best recipes for doves I have ever used. Rinse the wild rice, drain, and set aside. Skin the dove breasts, wipe with lemon juice, and salt and pepper the breasts. Chop the mushrooms, scallions and celery. Sautee them in the butter lightly (3-5 minutes). Put the wild rice in the bottom of a casserole dish. Arrange the dove breasts on top of the wild rice. Pour celery, mushroom, and scallion mixture over doves. Add rest of ingredients (tarragon, white wine, and chicken stock). Place the dish, covered, in a 325 degree preheated oven and let cook for one and one half to one and three quarter hours (90 - 105 minutes). This recipe keeps the dove breasts moist and tender!!! If you really want to go all out, here are few suggested changes: Pluck and draw the dove and use the back, leg and thigh too. In a roasting pan, baste the little babies with chicken or duck fat (butter will do in a pinch but be liberal with the fat so the birds remain moist). pre-heat the oven to 300 degrees and roast them. Baste every 20 minutes and check to see if they're done everytime you go to baste (you can tell by proding at the breast meat with a fork. If it pulls away from the sternum fairly easily then it is done. It's best to undercook slightly at this point because you will be cooking them again with the rice). Now take and pull the meat from the birds and set aside. Take the remaining bones and put into a stock pot and cover with cold water until about two inches above the bones. Add a quartered onion to the pot along with a bulb of garlic (around 8 cloves - cut in half and use germ too). Add a carrot (broken into two or three pieces). Bring the stock to a boil and reduce heat to low and let slowly simmer for two hours minimum (I'd suggest 4 hours). Add water if it drops below the bones. Substitute dove stock for the chicken stock below. Now take the pan drippings from the roaster and pour into a skillet (add duck/chicken fat or butter until you have about 3 or 4 tablespoons of fat (total) in the skillet. Saute chopped veggies in this mixture. Add wild rice to the skillet and coat well with the fat (stir for about 3 minutes). Now add the dove stock (1/2 cup) directly to the skillet and bring to a simmer for 3 or 4 minutes. Now add to the casserole dish along with the meat, wine and tarragon (personally, I'd use sage here but it's because I hate tarragon). The cooking times listed below will need to change for this recipe as well. Cover dish and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. =============================== Oven-Braised Dove Amount Measure Ingredient Preparation Method 6 Dove breasts, deboned/halved 6 tb Butter 3 tb Flour 2 c Chicken broth 1/2 c Wine, sherry 2 cn Button mushrooms, small 1/4 c Parsley, minced Salt & pepper to taste Season teal breast halves with salt and pepper. Melt butter in a black iron pot and brown breast halves. Remove to baking dish. Add flour to butter in pot, stirring well. Brown a little or not, your taste. Slowly add chicken broth and sherry. Season to taste. Blend well and pour over teal. Add mushrooms and parsley. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour in a covered baking dish. Serve with wild rice.