Female: Hi.

Sharon: And I’m Sharon Abramzon and we’re here at One if by land, Two if by Sea, one of New York City’s most romantic restaurants set in a beautiful carriage house.

Female: Tucked away in the west village, the chef hit the market’s innovative American cuisine.

Sharon: So let’s go behind the burner and have a very special holiday meal.

We’re here at with Executive Chef Craig Hopson at One if by land, Two if by sea. Craig, I have a challenge for you today.

Craig: What’s this?

Sharon: The challenge is that this is the first time that I have ever made wood pigeon, so I’m looking for you to give me the tips, tricks and techniques. And the other is, it is the first time I’ve ever worn an off white shirt in the kitchen.

Craig: You might be out of luck. Dirty, dirty pomegranates.

Sharon: So let’s get started.

Craig: We’re highlighting wild Scottish pigeon today. This guy is wild caught in Scotland. And what we’re going to do, we’re going to make up the Stashu Aioli, like a mayonnaise, and a pomegranate vinaigrette.

Sharon: When you make aioli and people have heard that word many times, what’s an aioli.

Craig: Aioli is essentially a mayonnaise but it’s only associated with garlic. I like to call it aioli because it’s a little bit more fancy.

Sharon: It’s pigeon time.

Craig: So I dried off the excess blood paper towel. I removed any excess blood and use it from the cavity. Because when it cooks, blood will dry up with really, really strong unpleasant taste.

Sharon: So we no have a beautiful D’Artagnan Wood Pigeon that is ready to be cooked.

Craig: Yes it is. I’m going to drizzle some olive oil on it like this, just enough to give it a nice coat, and then salt. Put salt on all sides. And we’re ready to go on the inside.

Sharon: You are being very generous with that salt.

Craig: So, let’s leave this cooking on a low, low flame. I’m going to make sure that every side is golden brown and beautifully nice and crisp. Now, we’re going to make the aioli. The main ingredient, pistachio oil, this one is crushed from pistachio nuts. Really, really good flavor. Okay, egg yolks, sure you have salt. We’re going to go in there with a nice and slow drizzle. Okay. And there we have it, a thick aioli.

Sharon: There’s a great creamy consistency.

Craig: It’s going to give it some creaminess and then also a lot of flavor, a little contrasting flavor. Next, pomegranate vinaigrette. Pomegranate juice, you can buy this in the supermarket.

Sharon: And you fear for your life when you’re pouring it so you don’t get it all over your clothes.

Craig: Be careful. We got it on the stove.

Sharon: And what are you looking for from here.

Craig: So what we’re going to do, we’re going to go to a hard and we’re going to reduce it down. This is two cups of liquid. We’re going to go down a half a cup. Okay, here we are, about half a cup left. That’s one quarter of what we started with. We’ll take this off the stove. This is virgin oil, the juice of unrotten grapes. So, I like this because it’s not going to clash too much, you’re still going to get that bite. And again, more grape seed oil.

Sharon: Grape seed oil is great because you want to use it in anything where you need oil to sort of bind the dish, the sauce or whatever it is.

Craig: It is going to give you that creaminess and the emulsification that the oil give it. There’s our vinaigrette. Now the fun part.

Sharon: So people get completely confused by pomegranate, they don’t know what to do with it.

Craig: I’m going to cut it straight into half. There you go. There is all those great little seeds. That’s the part we’re going to eat. Now, what I like to do.

Sharon: A meat mallet.

Craig: Hold it.

Sharon: You’re kidding me.

Craig: Bash it. See all of those seeds coming out, there’s your pomegranate seeds. Pigeon is ready.

Sharon: So, we’ve got pigeon, we’ve got partridge, it’s a very special thanksgiving today.

Craig: It is. So you tend to see the richness of the pigeon, but also the bite of that pomegranate and the creaminess of the pistachio.

Sharon: You really taste all the layer and all the flavors. It’s amazing. I’ve never… Yum.

Craig: That’s what I’m here for. See how this one is, the meat is very gained but it’s also white meat and foi gras kinda pierced well in all that flavor.

Sharon: So Chef Hopson, thank you so much.

Craig: Great. Thank you.

Sharon: Behind the burner members can enjoy this exclusive opportunity to purchase Chef Hopson’s partridge and pigeon and other fine meats from D’Artagnan.

Stay tuned Behind the Burner where we give you the tips, tricks and techniques that are lighting the culinary world on fire.