Squid Ink Restaurant, Looe, Cornwall

Ingedients

4 x pigeon breasts
½ x small onion (finely diced)
2 x cloves garlic (crushed)
6 x rashers of streaky bacon (cut into thin strips)
Olive oil for frying
4 x Flat field mushrooms (sliced)
Flat leaf parsley (roughly chopped)
Splash of red wine vinegar
8 x whole walnuts in their shells
Sea salt and cracked black pepper
Mixed salad leaves

How to cook

1. Roast the walnuts in a warm oven for 10 minutes, then crack open and remove one half of the nut (discarding the empty shell) so that you have a mix of shelled nuts and some still contained inside their shells.
2. Cook the bacon lardons in a slug of olive oil until crunchy, remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a piece of kitchen paper leaving the oil in the pan.
3. Sweat off the onion and garlic in the bacon fat together with a slug of olive oil and add the mushrooms and fry until any water has evaporated from them.
4. Add the red wine vinegar, salt and pepper, parsley, roasted walnuts and bacon and stir through until all ingredients are warm and combined.
5. Heat some more olive oil in a frying pan and pan fry the pigeon breasts for about a minute on each side so they stay pink in the middle. Remove from the heat and rest while you plate up the salad.
6. Pile the mixed leaves into the middle of a plate and top with the warm bacon and walnut salad spooning over any dressing left in the pan.
7. Slice the pigeon breast and lay on top of the salad and serve at once.