Pheasant

[jackal10]

Frozen is not fresh. The texture will be different. Best used for casserole or soup.

I prefer my pheasant hung. Not as much as it was in the old days, with maggots crawling and the feathers dropping, but if there is no gamey taste then why not just eat chicken.

[dockhl]

I have had the good fortune to be presented with a newly wild-shot , cleaned pheasant today.

Now, I remember my mother making Pheasant Paprikash when I was a child and I'm thinking of the same thing.......long slow cooking with onions and paprika, finished with sour creme or, mybe , creme fraiche.

Two questions........

should I brine it?

what might be some good accompaniments?

[tim]

Elle,

Definately Brine your pheasant!

Pheasant tends to dry out, especially if the skin has been stripped from the bird. Wrapping the bird in caul fat does help.

Paprikash (yes, use creme fraiche) sounds like a great idea although the paprika might overpower the subtle flavor of the pheasant. Go easy on the amount and heat of the paprika and don't overcook the pheasant.

Spaetzle would be a nice complement to the paprikash.

Good luck,

Tim

Edited November 15, 2006 by tim (log)

[dockhl]

Elle,

Definately Brine your pheasant!

Pheasant tends to dry out, especially if the skin has been stripped from the bird.  Wrapping the bird in caul fat does help.

Paprikash (yes, use creme fraiche) sounds like a great idea although the paprika might overpower the subtle flavor of the pheasant.  Go easy on the amount and heat of the paprika and don't overcook the pheasant.

Spaetzle would be a nice complement to the paprikash.

Good luck,

Tim

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Tim~

Thank you so much. I will definitely brine the bird......skin is still on altho pretty 'holey' !

The person who gave it to me doesn't like pheasant because it has 'too many tendons, and the Achilles is ossified' ........? Can it be more tendony than other birds? (This person is an MD..........)

That is why I was thinking of cooking it long and slow, to get it to fall off the bone (and tendons )

Hunters, what do you think?

[srhcb]

My Sister and BIL hunt pheasant, and are excellent cooks. Their favorite way of cooking pheasant is as a fricassee, using only the breast meat with very generous amounts of butter and cream in the sauce. They serve it with very chunky mashed potatos "in their jackets" and a vegetable like Brussels sprouts.

SB (I'll see if she has an actual recipe)

[Carolyn Tillie]

I purchased a number of pheasant in the recent D'Artagnan freezer sale for the sole purpose of making Saveur's Pheasant & Morel Potpie. Heavenly... consider yourself lucky!

[dockhl]

My Sister and BIL hunt pheasant, and are excellent cooks.  Their favorite way of cooking pheasant is as a fricassee, using only the breast meat with very generous amounts of butter and cream in the sauce.  They serve it with very chunky mashed potatos "in their jackets" and a vegetable like Brussels sprouts. 

SB (I'll see if she has an actual recipe)

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Steve, that sounds awesome. I'd love the recpe !

I purchased a number of pheasant in the recent D'Artagnan freezer sale for the sole purpose of making Saveur's Pheasant & Morel Potpie. Heavenly... consider yourself lucky!

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Carolyn, thanks for the link. I obviously am going to have to get this person to hunt again, soon !

Are you both agreed that I should brine?

[srhcb]

My Sister and BIL hunt pheasant, and are excellent cooks.  Their favorite way of cooking pheasant is as a fricassee, using only the breast meat with very generous amounts of butter and cream in the sauce.  They serve it with very chunky mashed potatos "in their jackets" and a vegetable like Brussels sprouts. 

SB (I'll see if she has an actual recipe)

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Steve, that sounds awesome. I'd love the recpe !

I purchased a number of pheasant in the recent D'Artagnan freezer sale for the sole purpose of making Saveur's Pheasant & Morel Potpie. Heavenly... consider yourself lucky!

←

Carolyn, thanks for the link. I obviously am going to have to get this person to hunt again, soon !

Are you both agreed that I should brine?

←

If you're slow cooking just the breast meat I don't think brining would be necessary? My Sister will be visiting this weekend (from Fargo, the Heart of Pheasant Country) and I'll ask her for some tips.

SB (maybe she'll even be bringing some frozen pheasant?)

[Carolyn Tillie]

For the potpie, I don't think brining is necessary -- there is enough other moisture to assure the meat won't be dry. I've never bothered to bring my pheasant for this recipe...

[dockhl]

Steve~

do you kow why they only use the breast meat?

Carolyn~

I agreee about the pot pie.

Now, what to do? I wish all of my problems had solutons that were this failproof!

Kathy

[Reefpimp]

This thread makes me irate that I could't go on the 12th Annual Great Northern Open and Pheasant Safari my extended family stages every year in North Dakota. I really really like pheasant. We generally only use the breasts too, although I make stock out of the rest of the bird--when you have 35-50 carcasses to work with, pheasant consomme becomes a distinct possibility--and have confitted the pheasant thighs in duck fat, which gilds the lily something fierce.

[srhcb]

The winters can seem pretty long in North Dakota, so about the beginning of March every year my Sister and BIL host a Wild Game Feed to dispell the gloom and tide them over until Spring. The past few years they've made the Feed into an Iron Chef type competition.

Pheasant is always included, and I reported on the 2004 event here.

SB (If you want to know how to make "Pheasant Escargot" you'll have to scroll down a few posts. )

[budrichard]

DO NOT brine your bird whether wild shot or not. I have been hunting pheseant for 30+ years both wild and game farm and they do not need brining. The difference is that a true wild pheseant, not a plant, if an old wild bird will be tough and devoid of most fat unless it has been sitting in a corn field with grain on the ground. In that case, braising whether with liquid or sour cream(my favorite) will suffice.

Many think they are shooting a wild bird but there is a lot of planting going on. -The reason only using the breast or commonly called breasting the bird is that the hunter is too lazy to properly clean the pheseant. I clean and skin, bone out the breasts and cook the leg/thighs in sour cream. The carcass is used to make a stock and eventually a sauce. The breasts can be barded if wild, if farm raised, a little butter is all that's needed. The game farm birds are almost like chicken these days!Dick

Edited November 16, 2006 by budrichard (log)

[dockhl]

DO NOT brine your bird whether wild shot or not. I have been hunting pheseant for 30+ years both wild and game farm and they do not need brining. The difference is that a true wild pheseant, not a plant, if an old wild bird will be tough and devoid of most fat unless it has been sitting in a corn field with grain on the ground. In that case, braising whether with liquid or sour cream(my favorite) will suffice.

Many think they are shooting a wild bird but there is a lot of planting going on. -The reason only using the breast or commonly called breasting the bird is that the hunter is too lazy to properly clean the pheseant. I clean and skin, bone out the breasts and cook the leg/thighs in sour cream. The carcass is used to make a stock and eventually a sauce. The breasts can be barded if wild, if farm raised, a little butter is all that's needed. The game farm birds are almost like chicken these days!Dick

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Well, now you've got me wondering. This was a pheasant shot at Tejon Ranch through some Central CA hunt club (we are in Paso Robles). Wild or a plant?

Hmmmmmm.............

[snowangel]

Knowing that I will have some pheasants tomorrow (definitely wild), I checked "Beard on Birds" out from the library today. Two special notes that he makes:

Pheasant has a tendency to be dry and requires ampli lubrication in cooking.

and

Young pheasants are known by their short, rounded claws; old ones by their long and sharp ones.

Most of the recipes in this book involve braising in a high fat liquid, which is what I've been taught by the people up north who rely on game as a source of food and livlihood.

[MarkinHouston]

Steve~

do you kow why they only use the breast meat?

The legs are indeed "tendony"! And if the thighs are scrawny, which is often the case in these fast-running birds, the breast is used for the entree and the remainder of the carcass as a base for stock, etc. WHen I was a kid, we used to soak the breasts in buttermilk, drain and fry the meat, and serve with a gravy made from the carcass stock. Heaven!

Carolyn~

I agreee about the pot pie.

Now, what to do? I wish all of my problems had solutons that were this failproof! 

Kathy

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[budrichard]

DO NOT brine your bird whether wild shot or not. I have been hunting pheseant for 30+ years both wild and game farm and they do not need brining. The difference is that a true wild pheseant, not a plant, if an old wild bird will be tough and devoid of most fat unless it has been sitting in a corn field with grain on the ground. In that case, braising whether with liquid or sour cream(my favorite) will suffice.

Many think they are shooting a wild bird but there is a lot of planting going on. -The reason only using the breast or commonly called breasting the bird is that the hunter is too lazy to properly clean the pheseant. I clean and skin, bone out the breasts and cook the leg/thighs in sour cream. The carcass is used to make a stock and eventually a sauce. The breasts can be barded if wild, if farm raised, a little butter is all that's needed. The game farm birds are almost like chicken these days!Dick

←

Well, now you've got me wondering. This was a pheasant shot at Tejon Ranch through some Central CA hunt club (we are in Paso Robles). Wild or a plant?

Hmmmmmm.............

←

Most likely a plant but give them a call. If a plant, you can roast it whole with butter for basting, just make sure the breast is slightly rare, i.e. pink juices unlike clear juices like chicken.-Dick

[StInGeR]

OK I was in King's today and feeling extravagent. Hell Just grabbing bread at King's is extravagnnt I found a couple of young pheasant (D'Artagnan) and bought them ... big problem is I have no idea what to do with them. Do you roast them like Game Hens?? Do they need special treatment? They're probably the size of squab and I'm totally lost. HELP!!!

Cheers

Tom

[budrichard]

If young and fresh, you could roast with liberal basting of butter, just don't cook like chicken, the breast should be still slightly pink. Better to debone the breast and then you can control the cooking better, use the leg/thighs for braising with sour cream/wine and the rest of the carcass for a stock for an eventual sauce for the breasts. -Dick

[snowangel]

Two pheasants for dinner tonright -- braised yesterday. After browning the parts, deglazed with leftover white wine; then some chix stock and mustard and taragon.

Over the course of the braise, the mstard disappeared, so Diana finished the sauce tonight with a bit more mustard and some cream. Over egg noodles, with salad on the sidee.

Oh, and we added a mess of halved (read easy to pick out of you are a kid who refuses to eat them) mushrooms.

We're thinking that the leftovers just might make their way into a pot pie tomorrow night.

[MarkinHouston]

Steve~

do you kow why they only use the breast meat?

The legs are where the tendons are located. They are more suitable for confit! The breast are rich, toothsome delights. Fricasee or pot pie are great choices!

Carolyn~

I agreee about the pot pie.

Now, what to do? I wish all of my problems had solutons that were this failproof! 

Kathy

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[paul o' vendange]

With no particular recipe, among other things, I am a fan of apple flavors with pheasant. I used to make little ballotines out of the breasts, stuffing them with a sausage made with leg meat, apple, and house-cured, applewood-smoked bacon. A pan sauce made with pheasant stock, shallots, easy calvados, and sage usually accompanies. I also like serving the legs separately, either braised or as confit. All, with some sort of fall gnocchi or similar side - our way, a local grower family produces beautiful delicata, so, I keep it simple and simply roast the squash halves, filling them with braised cabbage.

[countryboy]

Hello all, as I said above, I've got a bee in my bonnet about pheasants. Anyone got anything cool I should know? A favourite recipe, facts, even, God forbid, shooting experience?

[david goodfellow]

A butcher neighbour of ours who lives a couple of fields away bred some this year and they wandered onto our land in abundance. When I spied the first group of three handsome males and eight dowdy looking females the saliva started to flow. We spotted many many groups of birds over the weeks and months, however I am too soft to shoot any especially as another neighbour fed one of the said males regularly and it was so tame it virtually came to our door.

As the weeks progressed into months they have all but disappeared, the females first, strangely because I would have thought the noisy males with their vivid plumage would be the first.

Only one male remains, who come to think of it I have not heard or seen for a couple of days.

Our butcher neighbour never comes on to our land so their demise is most certainly down to the fox population, the very one(s) that bit through the wire into my duck pen and killed six of the twelve that I thought were safely ensconced there. This very short lived killing spree was in broad daylight and thankfully ended when I paid one of my twice daily visits to witness said fox killing the last one. If not for that visit they all would have perished.

Don't let anyone kid you that foxes are anything other than killing machines, that is what they do.

By strange coincidence we have a pheasant in the freezer that we will pot roast at the weekend.

This creature was one of a brace of birds from a local game dealer which cost me £5 for the pair and truth be told I,m happier paying for them as I did and do miss the pheasants walking through the fields, it just seems so natural.

I have in the past resorted to stopping my car and picking the odd roadkill bird up, much to my wifes embarrassment. Still best that we eat it rather than the crows and magpies.

[Peter the eater]

Wild pheasant are doing well in my neck of the woods. My butcher sells them from time to time -- I don't know if he raises them on his farm, or if they are taken from the woods. Either way, the meat is dark and flavorful and a nice alternative to other birds.

I like a pheasant that is slow-roasted breast up, with smoky maple bacon on top to lubricate the process.

There's a place in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia that will organize and supply a pheasant hunt. I've not done it, yet. It all sounds very civilized, like you'd go on horseback with a Hunting Pink and Topper.