Pheasant recipes/suggestions?

mehefin

A neighbour has given us a couple of pheasant - plucked etc and deep frozen.
They are not very large so will probably cook the pair - just wondered if anyone had any reasonable OS recipes or suggestion how to cook. Thought we might adapt a duck recipe or just plain roast them?
Know very little about game - is it fatty like duck?
Might wait till we fire up the Rayburn and pot roast them. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Sallys_Savings

I've only roasted mine...but they are nice, rather a strong flavour.
If you haven't eaten pheasant before make sure you dont eat any of the yellow fat its really bitter.

mmmm havent had a pheasant for a couple of years now.

thriftmonster

They're quite lean. If you aren't sure how old they are pot roast them in a large casserole with onion, celery and some wine - this is ds1's favourite food - oh if you can stir some redcurrant jelly in at the end

**purplemoon**

On a similar vein does anyone know anything about roasting a goose please? My OH has requested we have goose for christmas dinner this year (neither of us are fond of turkey) but I've never cooked one before

Would I be able to buy one from a local butcher or do I need to find a specialist game butcher? I don't mind buying online if I have to as long as it's good quality/free range etc so any recommendations would be good

rhubarbs

I love goose. We have it every Christmas. I get mine from my local butcher, I place an order for it though as he doesn't buy many in. M&S do them too. Pretty much all geese are free range and good quality as they can't be mass farmed like turkey. They are quite fatty to cook (but not to eat!) and can make a bit of a mess of your oven. Sometimes the bird comes with pillows of fat just inside the cavity, take these out and render them down, the fat makes the best roast potatoes. Last year I followed Sophie Grigson's roasting instructions on the bbc website. Unlike most she covers the bird with foil, oven was a bit less messy... Enjoy.

thriftlady_2

We have goose for Christmas too. It is my ds1's favourite food One thing you should bear in mind is that there is not as much meat on them as on a turkey, even though they look big. The cavity is quite roomy. There'll be enough for about 6 people I should think from an average sized bird, but you won't get loads of leftovers for the following weeks

I order mine from my local Q Guild butcher and he gets them from here
http://www.goodmansgeese.co.uk/ which very near me. They are pricy mind you, but when I bought a turkey I used to get a free range bronze turkey and they don't come cheap. Geese will not allow themselves to be reared intensively (sensible birds) so any goose you buy will be free range.

They are also traditionally eaten at Michaelmas (29th Sept) as they were fattened up by letting them feed on the gleanings in the fields after the grain harvest.

thriftlady_2

To get back to pheasants. I've just checked out Sophie Grigson's book Feasts For a Fiver, and she suggests taking the breasts off and frying them for a few minutes as they are very quick to cook. She serves them up with a sauce/gravy made of reduced pheasant stock (made from the carcases of the birds) and some kind of sweet preserve like elderberry jelly. She then uses the rest of the stock and the leg meat to make a curried pheasant chowder. Two meals from two birds.

I once picked up a bag of pheasant legs from a farmer's market and made lots of rich stock from them. It was excellent in lentil soups

MrsTinks

We are having goose for christmas too as it's quite traditional in Denmark and I'm not a huge turkey fan (last year we had ducks and ham - meant we had leftovers for the next day for snacking on).

I follow Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall's meat book for cooking times. (And I usually use roasting bags but that will need to change for the goose... drat!)

MrsTinks

Pheasant is also pretty nice just roasted but wrapped in bacon... or try smearing apricot marmelade on the bird yum yum yum

Mrs_pbradley936

I know a little bit about cooking game. First examine it to see if it is damaged, by that I mean is it peppered with shot? did the dog bringing it in bite down too hard? If it is undamaged you can more or less do what you what with it – bear in mind it will be dry compared with chicken. If it is damaged then I have very nice recipe. Cook it in a pressure cooker with a carrot and onion for about twenty minutes. Pull the meat off the bones and keep warm. Make a blond roux with the water from the pressure cooker and pure over the meat. Then dice and fry half a pound of streaky bacon with about a pint of breadcrumbs (not the store bought dust) pot the bacon and breadcrumb mix over the meat as if it was a crumble then bake in a hot oven.

liz545

OH and I went falconing today at Leeds castle. It was brilliant fun, but one of the hawks caught a wild pheasant :eek: It's now hanging above my bathtub; as far as I can see our options are either to roast or braise it. I don't know how old it was, so I'm inclined to braise/potroast, but OH thinks roast. The catch is, neither of us have ever gutted a bird (or, in fact, anything) before, does anyone know how we should go about doing this?
I'm not sure I want it to taste strongly gamey, so if I only hang it for a day or so, will it still be tender enough?