pheasant

[Bill Wright]

A bloke gave me a brace of pheasants. Childhood memory helped my pluck and disembowel, but mother always did the cooking. Any tips?

Bill

[A.Lee]

Too late now, but just slice down breast and cut off the breast meat, and the thighs if there is enough meat on them. Chuck the rest away, unless it is an exceptionally big bird - most have so little meat on them, apart from breast and thigh, that it is not worth keep the rest of the carcass, and go through the trouble of plucking/cleaning out. Getting the guts out always puts me off it too.

Slow cooking is the best way I've done a pheasant. Picked up a road kill earlier this year, breast and thighs in slow cooker, half a can of cider, an apple, a bit of gravy, pepper, salt etc, leave to cook for 5 hours or so, was the best pheasant I've ever had. There's a similar recipe here:

[The Natural Philosopher]

if young, about an housr roastingg with stuffing is good.

BUT pheasant tends to be dry and tough if any older/cooked longer, so a 'chicken brick' with a closed lid works better for older birds. make in that for an hour and roast for 2 minutes with the lid off, and add bacon strips to baste the skin.

Or use foil.

Beyond that, pot roasting in a closed pot with liquid in it and vegetables works well for really tough old birds. Carrots onions and fennel for a European flavour, onions garlic tomatoes (tinned) with oregano and peppersr for a 'meditrerranean' feel.

Pheasant also goes well in curries. joint and bone it and boil the carcase for stock. fry the meat in spices and make rise using the stock. combine to make a biryani and serve with a veg curry, for example.

Finally 'always remove any yellow fat!!' I am not sure what's in it, but its butter, disgusting and taints the pheasant

If you get a mixed bad of badly shot birds, and other stuff consider a terrine.,

that is a bread tin sized dish which you line with streaky bacon, then fill with sausagemeat and beaten egg used to glue together any bits of rabbit chicken duck pheasant, venison or whatever, - livers too are useful in that fold the bacon lining over the top and bake at low heat for hours.

What you get is a mixed game meat loaf of enormous density, slices of that cold on toast are delicious!

[Chris Hogg]

Make sure they've been hung for a week, or they'll be tough. See my post yesterday under 'Turkey' and the link in it.

Very many years ago when I was a teenager we were given a brace of pheasants for Christmas; they were very well 'hung' and were rather 'high'. Stinking, might be a better description. A lot of people would have thrown them away as being rotten. But my mother cooked them thoroughly, and they were delicious; very gamey flavoured, if you like that sort of thing.

Plenty of recipes for cooking pheasant if you just Google for 'cooking pheasant'.

[Cursitor Doom]

Yes, at least a week and often 10 days or more. I know some people who insist that they should practically have maggots dropping out of them before they reach their best in terms of flavour! Failing that, 3 day old roadkill should be approx. equivalent. ;)

[polygonum]

A story in Harvey Day's curry book relates diner in a restaurant telling the waiter to congratulate the chef on the pheasant risotto. Message gets to chef, "What risotto? - none on the menu. Ah - had the pheasant been hung a bit too long...",

[Lobster]

Cursitor Doom grunted in news:l96krb$bo3$ [e-mail]:

I remember dead birds hanging in parent's 'coal hole' for long periods when I were a lad; I must admit I've never quite understood it. Surely if I bought a fresh chicken from Sainsbury's and hung the thing for a week before eating it, wouldn't it (a) be stinking to high heaven and (b) give me food poisoning for a cert?

Or would it actually taste rather good, and the food poisoning thing is just H&S propaganda? Or are chickens and pheasants fundamentally different?

[Tim Streater]

snip]

Suggest you (a) giggle for "hanging pheasants" and (b) add a space after the -- in your .sig (without the space it's incorrect).

[Tim Watts]

On Monday 23 December 2013 16:02 Lobster wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Game != poultry

[polygonum]

This is quoted from another place:

If any Avast user wishes to de-select that option, there is information at

[dennis]

I don't know why people put stuff like that on the messages as you wouldn't trust it to be true anyway.

[johno]

Chuck the

WHAT! cook the lot, make a damn fine stock/soup out of the tough as old boots inedible bits. Chuck it away? Strewth!

[Vir Campestris]

It got me on the first post I made after an upgrade. They turned it on without asking, and it's put me off the product which I was happily recommending to people. It's just an advert.

Andy