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| Essential ingredients |
This is a simple dish, really, but the art of a great blogger and amateur chef is to make it look difficult.....nope, I can't. It honestly is simple enough.
My pheasants are obtained from a shoot on which I am a beater each year, they are dressed by me and I skin them rather than pluck them. This is because there is very little fat on the birds - and skinning them is far easier. However, if you buy yours from a butcher then, although it will almost certainly have retained its skin, you will still need the bacon with which to cover the bird. This adds the necessary liquid to prevent the pheasant drying out - a common complaint about game bird recipes.
So I place half a lemon and half the blackberries (I start with about 100 grams - these were picked right outside our cottage) into the cavity, season the bird with salt and black pepper, wrap the entire bird, legs and all, in bacon and place it in the pan on top of three or four halved red onions and four cloves of garlic. I sprinkle in the thyme and rosemary add two or three juniper berries and, in this instance, I also added two all-spice berries for a little depth and heat. About half the mulled wine was poured in around the bird and the pot placed, lid off in a hot oven (200 degrees) for 30 minutes or so.
Now, after 30 minutes, you have a choice; the bird is certainly cooked if you like your game rare-ish, just take it out of the oven, place the lid on top and leave while you prepare the vegetables, this helps retain the moistness. Or, you can add a touch more wine if it looks as if it needs it, put the lid on, turn down the oven to about 150 degrees and allow it to slowly cook until the meat falls off the bone.
Isn't that marvelous? A meal with a choice and I can't honestly say which I prefer, it depends on the occassion and how hungry I am.
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| Ready for the oven |
With which vegetables to serve it is another wonderful choice laid before you....roasted butternut squash is seasonal as would be a spiced red cabbage dish or perhaps sweet turnips and potatoes...Or if cooking slowly you could at this stage add frozen peas and chopped carrots to the pot before putting the lid on. I have a garden full of beans and carrots so that is what I will have this time. As with all my recipes, you can change it around as much as you like to suit your tastes and needs.
Please give Pheasant a try, if you haven't done so, it's cheap, usually local and adds back to the community. These shoots employ locals, the gamekeepers are custodians of the Countryside as are the Farmers on whose land the shoots are held. Every beat I've been on has shown the care and concern of the woods and fields that one would expect from the pragmatic approach of country folk. Life is not taken needlessly,and never wasted. If there are too many birds, then we give them, fully prepared, to the local Care Homes, Hospices and Churches. We enjoy the fresh air, even when the ground temperature is in negative numbers, we get plenty of excercise, keep an eye on the woodland and the birds are given a good, plentiful living and every sporting chance during the shoot. This would only apply if you buy your meat from a butcher rather than a supermarket. Supermarkets are rarely concerned with local food sourcing and almost never give anything back to the local community, I avoid them as much as I can.
