Your Best Pheasant Recipe

[Mjx]

My boyfriend's father recently shot several pheasant, and we've been given one as a gift. It is presently sitting, cleaned and plucked, in our refrigerator.

I've looked at a couple of other threads that discuss pheasant, but none seem to include any detailed, tested recipes; I love pheasant, and really want to do this one justice.

I haven't got a sous-vide rig, so that isn't an option, but pretty much anything else is on the table.

[qrn]

Well, I have not shot and cooked one for years,but with what I can remember,its just to roast as you would a chicken,and the breasts are very,very good...sorry, can't be more specific,someone else will probably chime in

(hopefully)

Bud

[pep.]

For how many people? A few years ago I made pheasant crostini adapted from a Carluccio recipe. Basically the whole bird was roasted, then all the meat except the breasts was simmered with wine and herbs before being pureed. The breast meat was cut into small cubes and put on top of the crostini. The yield was sufficient as an appetizer for 12 people.

I'd have to look up the details. The original recipe used several pigions in place of the pheasant.

[Mjx]

For how many people? A few years ago I made pheasant crostini adapted from a Carluccio recipe. Basically the whole bird was roasted, then all the meat except the breasts was simmered with wine and herbs before being pureed. The breast meat was cut into small cubes and put on top of the crostini. The yield was sufficient as an appetizer for 12 people.

I'd have to look up the details. The original recipe used several pigions in place of the pheasant.

The bird is 770g/27oz (no feet or wings, since they were unfortunately trimmed away and discarded as garbage), so probably smaller than the bird recommended for the recipe, but I'd love to hear it, anyway... adaptation is always an option.

[Peter the eater]

We've had quite a few pheasant this fall. The last one was probably the best because it was never frozen and I took the time to brine it overnight. The breast meat was plump, juicy, dark and tasty. Roasting low and slow like a small chicken works for me. The legs are always a bit chewy unless you go the confit route. I love these birds with cranberry, rosemary and gin flavours.

Not very detailed, sorry Mjx. There's something about cooking wild game -- maybe proven recipes are too civilized?

[Paul Bacino]

Plucked Nice!!

So many times people just skin them!!

Edited November 17, 2011 by Paul Bacino (log)

[Hassouni]

That's smaller than a normal chicken, so roast as if doing a small chicken. However, I highly recommend brining overnight and then covering with bacon (barding? larding? I always get confused).

[suzilightning]

since you have a fresh bird you should definitley go with a brine. i like to drape the breast with some bacon before i roast it. i roast it on a raft of sliced carrots, shallots and some thyme. since the hubs only likes the breast, i strip the meat from the carcass and use the bones - with bay leaf and aromatics - to make a broth. i use the broth and the meat to make soup with wild and brown rice and aromatics.

congratulations on having such generous folks.

[Mjx]

I definitely appreciate the advice about brining, since I was wondering about that, and how long the bird should be brined for, given its relatively small size.

I've been thinking about tucking pancetta under the breast skin (may prove to be too fiddly to be workable, but seems like it might be worth at least trying), has anyone tried anything like that?

[KateBChi]

The skin on part threw me. My source always skins them. I get why he does it (way easier than plucking) and I won't look a gift pheasant in the mouth but the cooking methods are vastly different with a skin on bird. Skin on I'd brine and roast or grill (as we did when my dad and brothers used to hunt pheasant). Skin off as I've only gotten in the last 20 years we rely on marinades (and brines) and then grill or braise or fry cut up. A sauce is usually involved as these babies can dry out pretty fast if care is not taken. Sauces hide a multitude of sins.

[Mjx]

I'm really grateful for the skin, but yeh, it takes ages to pluck: I should know, since I did the fine plucking on two of the birds. I'm trying to tak every measure possible to avoid drying the bird, particularly since its size is going to make it difficult to accurately place the probe of a thermometer, and the oven temperature is way off.

[Norm Matthews]

Young pheasants that have eaten well will have a layer of fat under the skin and can be cooked in any way that a young chicken can... roasted or broiled. If food for the bird was scarce or it is an older bird, it will best be cooked by moist heat, either braised or simmered.

[budrichard]

I never brine wild birds of any kind. Having the bird plucked is nice if preparing whole. Even game farm birds don't have a lot of fat so barding is a good idea. I use butter, unsalted both inside and out and for barding/basting. Simply season as you like and roast in a hot oven until rare to medium rare, let rest about 15 minutes before carving and serve.

I have taken to preparing my wild birds is the following manner because invariably the leg/thighs respond much better: I take the breasts and leg thighs and innards, the breasts are roasted until rare off the bone, the leg/thighs are cooked by some sort of moist heat process, sometimes with sour cream and sometimes in a stock. The innards are used for pates or other type preparations.-Dick

[Mjx]

I just unbagged the bird, and discovered that actually, most of the skin over the breast is missing (the bag was transluscent, and when I noticed some skin, I assumed it was all there) The only birds that have all their skin are the two I plucked, and they've been frozen for a holiday meal.

Would it be taking chances to cover the breasts really well with pancetta, and roast? I think the one I've got is one of the younger birds (one of the two was really young, the spurs were still small), but I have to wait until my boyfriend's father is done with his trumpet lesson to ask.

[pep.]

The bird is 770g/27oz (no feet or wings, since they were unfortunately trimmed away and discarded as garbage), so probably smaller than the bird recommended for the recipe, but I'd love to hear it, anyway... adaptation is always an option.

770 g sounds about right, but I'll check the recipe. My pheasant was also much smaller than what I remembered from my childhood, which is why I made the crostini. I think the original was 4 pigeons or quails. Unfortunately, I'm not near my cookbooks. I'll report back on this on Sunday.

[Norm Matthews]

Since the bird does not have skin, you would do well to cover it with a fatty meat. I don't know if pancetta has enough fat to keep the pheasant moist or not. Bacon would and you might consider draping it with cheesecloth soaked in a savory, buttery broth,and atop moist aromatic vegetables, but the one way that you won't have to worry about over-cooking is to do a braise, simmer or fricassee (to use an old fashioned term).

[Mjx]

I'm getting a little discouraged.

A number of roasting recipes recipes recommend starting the pheasant briefly at high temperature (230C°/450F°) then reducing the temperature (to 177C°/350F°), and roasting until the thigh registers 57C°/135F°. This inverts the process I use for roasting a chicken (one recipe claimed that the legs burn if the heat is higher at the end), but wasn't illogical, so I decided to give it a go.

I rubbed olive oil over the outside, stuffed the cavity with fresh rosemary, draped the bird in a double layer of pancetta, popped it into the oven, and began washing up. I glanced at the temperature about ten minutes later, and was horrified to see that it had already hit 77C°/171F°. I yanked out the bird, and took a look. The surface wasn't particularly browned, notwithstanding the fact that the oven felt like a blast furnace. I poked the probe in one or two other places, and got mixed readings. I turned down the heat, turned off the hot air, and put the bird back in. I'm trying to look at this philosophically (I can always, I don't know, braise it afterwards? turn it into soup?), but I have a sinking feeling in my stomach about the outcome.

On top of this, the only metal roasting pan has vanished, and the ceramic one I'm using cannot be deglazed on the stovetop, so I'm going to lose a lot of fond

[Mjx]

Remarkably, this came out well; not just 'not dreadful', but really tasty and moist. And I have no idea how this happened: There was skin missing, the temperature seemed way, way too high, by rights, this should have been a desiccated ruin.

I'd still love to hear what the rest of you do with pheasant, and how.

[Norm Matthews]

Glad to hear it came out well.

[Blether]

Lose fond ? Pour boiling water in there and stir it around. (With water in it I'd be surprised if it wouldn't tolerate a gentle burner, but that's beside the point).

Did you look at mm84321's pheasant in Dinner! this week ?

[Mjx]

Lose fond ? Pour boiling water in there and stir it around. (With water in it I'd be surprised if it wouldn't tolerate a gentle burner, but that's beside the point).

Did you look at mm84321's pheasant in Dinner! this week ?

I did (it doesn't always get everything up, but this time it was fine)... and I did!

[pep.]

Carluccio's recipe uses the Common Wood Pigeon (3 to be exact), including their liver. I adapted it to one pheasant and some chicken liver. You marinate the bird(s) for an hour and roast (bake in MC terminology) them in a 220°C oven for 30 minutes. Then you remove the meat from the bones (which could be used for stock making) and add it to the marinade. The mixture is simmered for 10 minutes and pureed with a stick blender. The puree is spread on toasted crostini (12 according to the recipe, but that obviously depends on your bread size).

My variation of the recipe included not simmering the breast meat. Instead I simply diced it and used it as decoration on the crostini. The marinade contains the following ingredients:

• 2 glasses of red wine
  
• 4 tbsp olive oil
  
• some sage leaves
  
• 1 tbsp salted capers (watered)
  
• 1 clove of garlic
  
• 3 anchovies
  
• salt and pepper to taste
  

All are mixed together and blended with a stick blender.

[sheepish]

Made Pheasant and Trotter pie last weekend which was very good. Recipe from Fergus Henderson's Nose to Tail. Essentially a stock made from half red wine, half chicken stock, plus a couple of trotters and some veg. Strained stock and cooled. It sets *very* easily. Brown pheasant halves. Lightly brown some lardons. Soften onion. All goes in the stock in an oven dish. Foil on top and braise for 45 mins. Pull the pheasant off the bones and combine back into stock. Rest overnight and that's your pie filling. Pie crust made with suet. Nicest thing I've made in a long time. Pheasant was very pheasanty. Had hung for a week and it's been fairly warm here for November, 12-15C. Some tiny maggots around the vent by the time I plucked it - but I haven't told Mrs Sheepish about those :-)

Edited November 23, 2011 by sheepish (log)

[Mjx]

I have two small pheasants (455g and 495g, or about a pound each; they're skinned and frozen) that I'm planning on browning, then braising (at 120C/250F) for 45 minutes, the length of time sheepish mentions using for pheasant halves.

Unless... anyone have other recommendations for braising small whole pheasants?