Teriyaki Dove Tacos with Caramelized Onions

This is a favorite recipe of mine when comes to either doves or ducks, the dark meat of the migratory birds just seems to fit better with the Asian style marinade. The portions provided below is to make 4 tacos using 10 doves, when using smaller ducks suck as teal or wood ducks (the best duck by far for this recipe) I would recommend 1 and 1/2 ducks per taco, with larger ducks such as mallards I recommend 1 duck breast per taco

The Setup

 Teriyaki marinade

All the tools for a happy hunter (the two
discolored doves sat in water overnight)

• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 2 T Sesame Oil
• 2 T Rice Vinegar
• 2 cloves of garlice
• 1 T Ginger
• 2 green onions

Toppings

• 1 white onion
• 1 T salted butter
• 1 t olive oil
• dash of salt and pepper 

Preperation

 The Marinade

Everyone in the pool

 1. Breast out the doves by cutting along the breast bone and then cutting the breast away from the body, doves take roughly 3.65098 seconds to breast out.

2. Add all of the wet ingredients to the bowl

3. Mince the garlic and chop the white end of the green onions, saving the green tops for later. Add the garlic, green onion ends, and ginger* to the bowl.

4. Mix the marinade and then add the dove breasts. Let sit for 30 minutes.

The Toppings

Making an Oniony mess

 1. Chop the onion so it looks like that over there to the right. I use a mandolin, if you are handy with a knife then go to town.

Precision chopping at its finest

 2. Chop up the green ends of the green onions that you saved from earlier, I like to use these as a finishing touch on the tacos.

MMMMMM.. Butter

 3. Add the butter and olive oil to a saute pan and set on low heat. Once the butter is melted, add the sliced white onion, and a little salt and pepper to taste.

4. Caramelize the onions, cooking on low for about 15 minutes, the ones to the right have a little bit to go yet. When these are done I just set the burner to the lowest setting and keep them warm.

 Stick it to the man (birds)

1. I like to skewer the pieces and then cook them on the grill. The only thing that I cannot stress enough is that you do not want to over cook the birds. Repeat after me, I WILL NOT COOK THE BIRDS PAST MEDIUM-RARE
If you choose to follow this method, do not jam a bunch of pieces on the skewer, give them a little room, they will cook quicker.

 2. I like to brush the skewers with the left over marinade as the birds are cooking. Generally I flip them once and cook for about 4 minutes per side at medium-low heat. This is not Spinal Tap, just because your grill can go up to 11 do not push it beyond about 4.

 Put it all together

Here is the finished product, I like to use tortillas, I take all the pieces from one skewer and, add on some caramelized onions and then finish off with the green onion tops. I recommend that you try them this way first before tweaking the recipe. I like to add Srirachi sauce sometimes for some extra kick, and there are millions of varieties that you can make. I hope you all enjoy!

* depending on what is available at my grocery store I will use either fresh  ginger or preprocessed ginger, please just do not use powdered ginger.