Pheasant Recipes

[drfrank]

Dear All,

The season started earlier in the month and my boss has given me a fine brace. Whilst I love eating game, I have never cooked it....any suggestions ?

I was thinking of just taking the breasts from them, in the pan then finish in the oven. The rest of the bits I will roast and make a stock/gravy ?

The other option is a PIE !!!

Any suggestions greatly received

[cramorra]

Instead of panfrying the breasts put the whole birds in the oven (belted with some green bacon and rosemary) after 45 min - depending how pink you like em-or so- remove, cut off breasts and keep warm (covered with a bit of butter), get the meat off the rest and keep aside, then chop the carcasses, fry them for 5 min in olive oil with some roots (parsnip, carrot, celeriac and a shallot), flame with a bit of cognac and fill up with some chicken stock - let simmer for 15 min, strain and put half in a pot with some cream, season with salt and pepper and serve - goes very well with red cabbage, polenta or some sprouts and mushrooms - if you want to go crazy grate a white truffle over it
The rest of the meat chopped finely with the roots, filled up with a can of tomatoes and the rest of the gravy, cooked for 40 min will give an excellent ragout for a different lasgana or to top up tagliatelle
And pheasant wants to swim - a good chateneuf du pape or new world shiraz will be ideal

edited to remove the worst typos....

Edited by cramorra on Tuesday 16th November 14:08

[Mobile Chicane]

There's a fair amount of meat on a pheasant and it would be a shame just to use the breasts.

Either roast the whole thing as suggested above, or cut off the legs and confit those while pan-frying the breasts (escargot's 'Photo of Your Dinner' a few pages back).

The legs are full of bony spurs, hence the slow-cooking treatment works well on these. Then roast the remainder of the carcass and use that for stock.

Gutting and plucking is a smelly, horrible job. I use vinyl gloves and get all the feathers / innards into a carrier bag, tie that up and throw it into the (outside) bin.

[SVX]

I can only echo what the esteemed MC says, take the breast meat off and slow cook the remainder in chicken stock, port, good claret with a handful of junpier and plenty of bay leaves; add the usual mirepoix.
Allow the meat to cool - then pick it clean, and use in either a fab stew or in a great pie.

[Cactussed]

http://www.basc.org.uk/en/games-on/topnav/recipes/...

As a slightly different alternative...

Strip the raw meat from the legs. Blend with some eggs, season then push through a sieve. Fold into some whipped cream then poach quennelles in stock. Serve with a mushroom risotto.