Brown Butter Garlic Dove Toast
Dove breast, browned butter, and toasted sourdough on a camp skillet. Built for the evening after a bird hunt.
- calories
- 430
- weight
- 5 oz
- cal / oz
- 86
- protein
- 24 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Snack
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Canister stove
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Dove breasts, deboned | 6 to 10 doves | two halves per bird, 12 to 20 pieces total |
|---|---|---|
| Sourdough loaf | 1 loaf | cut into thick slices |
| European-style butter | 2 sticks | high butterfat, softened |
| Garlic | 6 cloves | peeled and minced |
| Fresh parsley | 1/4 cup | chopped |
| Dried Italian seasoning | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste |
Method
- Set a cast iron skillet over the coals or a grate at medium heat. Melt half a stick of butter and let it go past melted until it smells nutty and the milk solids turn brown. Watch it. It goes from brown to burnt in under a minute.
- Add half the garlic and cook it for thirty seconds, no longer.
- Lay in the dove pieces, salt and pepper them, and sear about two minutes a side. Pull them at medium rare. Dove is lean and turns to liver-flavored rubber if you push it.
- Set the meat aside on a plate and let it rest.
- Wipe the pan, melt the rest of the butter with the remaining garlic and the Italian seasoning, and toast the sourdough slices in it, one side down, until they go gold.
- Slice the dove against the grain, pile it on the toast, spoon the pan butter over, and scatter the parsley.
This is a bird hunt recipe, which means it is written around a small pile of meat rather than a large one. A few doves will not feed anyone as an entree. Spread across toast with browned butter and garlic, the same few breasts feed a camp.
Browning the butter is the whole point. Melted butter is fat; browned butter is fat plus toasted milk solids, and those solids are what stand up to lean dark meat. Two things will ruin it: burning the butter, and overcooking the dove. Both happen fast over a fire, so keep the pan off the hottest coals and pull the meat earlier than feels right. It is a cooler recipe, not a backpacking one — real butter and fresh bread do not travel any other way.
Packing
Butter, doves, and bread all need the cooler or the same-day cooler run. Mince the garlic and chop the parsley at home into a small jar so camp is just cooking. Italian seasoning goes in a spice tin.
Variations
- Shaved parmesan over the top before serving, if you have it in the cooler.
- Any small game or upland bird works. Quail and grouse breast cook on the same clock.
- No cooler at all: swap in a can of chicken and skip the sear. Not the same dish, but the garlic butter toast carries it.
https://realtree.com/recipes/timber-2-table/brown-butter-garlic-dove-toast-appetizers