Roast pheasant

[Olaf]

The other day I had the privilege of introducing some German hunting friends to some English hunting friends.
My German friends had been invited to take part in an end of season Pheasant shoot in Lincolnshire. It was a lovely day , beautiful countryside and a really lovely bunch of people.
Following this day I now have a couple of braces of Pheasants I wish to roast and serve with simple side dishes of vegetables for my friends.
I’ve cooked thousands of kg of Venison over the past 15 years or so , rabbits, hares , wild boar ( everything rifle related actually) but last dealt with Pheasants and partridges a good 10 years ago.
My question is this, what should I do to make a perfect whole roast Pheasant? Id like to do salt pepper a bit of rosemary, some roast potatoes with bread sauce and some loganberry sauce, a couple of Yorkshire puddings and some bread sauce with cabbage and carrots. . Obviously a reduced stock with a little sherry or something to drizzle over it.
But, how best to deal with the birds ? From shooting to cooking, how long to hang them ? Guts in , Guts out? When to pluck and when and how to roast ?
Any suggestions will be happily received.
Kindest regards, Olaf

 

[User00056]

I would hang them for only a couple of days? Guts in. Then pluck and brine the birds overnight before roasting? Boil a kettle & mix a good handful of salt into a pint or thereabouts until it dissolves. You can also add the same amount of dark brown sugar if you like? Add some bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, and garlic, and add enough cold water to ensure the birds are fully-immersed. It needs to be cold before the birds go in though.

Then just pat dry and roast as you usually would. I guarantee you'll have a juicy and flavourful bird. Bear in mind the brining will reduce the cooking time by about fifteen minutes though

 

[Essexsussex]

Brining is 100% the way to treat a pheasant

 

[VSS]

Not often I have roast pheasant as there's other ways of cooking pheasant that I prefer, but one thing I always recall my mother doing, which made a world of difference, was to blend good Stilton with a slightly softer cream cheese and then stuff a reasonably thick layer of the resulting paste under the skin of the breast the whole way over.
She might also have added some herbs to the mixture, but not sure about that.

 

[PeterHenry]

I find that pareing the skin away from the breasts - with a not too sharp knife - and putting butter underneath helps a lot.

Also basting regularly.

Drying, then salting, then drying / scraping the salt off the skin before cooking will result in crisper skin.

Resting for a good 15 minutes somewhere warm, and under loose tinfoil will improve the meat greatly.

Finally, I would deglaze the roasting pan with something like sharp cider, and have it as a 'jus' or to add to the gravy.

 

[angusb1]

Brining is 100% the way to treat a pheasant

Thanks very much, I can see how that would really suit pheasant

 

[Olaf]

Thank you all for the very helpful replies. I’d have never considered brining them. I once tried it with a turkey but I didn’t like the results. However, I think I will do a bird as a test run as I have one more pheasant than I need.
Thanks once again for the replies.
Kindest regards, Olaf

 

[Essexsussex]

Thank you all for the very helpful replies. I’d have never considered brining them. I once tried it with a turkey but I didn’t like the results. However, I think I will do a bird as a test run as I have one more pheasant than I need.
Thanks once again for the replies.
Kindest regards, Olaf

My tip is to pat dry then air dry a while after brining. Helps with crispy skin
The hen birds are the best for roasting

 

[SSN100]

I would hang them for only a couple of days? Guts in. Then pluck and brine the birds overnight before roasting? Boil a kettle & mix a good handful of salt into a pint or thereabouts until it dissolves. You can also add the same amount of dark brown sugar if you like? Add some bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, and garlic, and add enough cold water to ensure the birds are fully-immersed. It needs to be cold before the birds go in though.

Then just pat dry and roast as you usually would. I guarantee you'll have a juicy and flavourful bird. Bear in mind the brining will reduce the cooking time by about fifteen minutes though

Do you know why the cooking time is reduced? I mean the sience?

 

[User00056]

Do you know why the cooking time is reduced? I mean the sience?

I think it's something to do with osmosis introducing salt directly into the meat and almost 'pre-cooking' some of the proteins

 

[Phil fox man]

if on the rare occasion I cook a whole bird I spatchcock it and baste regularly.
phil.

 

[Hambone]

If you can use hen birds, they seem to roast better than cocks.

 

[Apthorpe]

Do you know why the cooking time is reduced? I mean the sience?

The brine will have disrupted or weakened the hydrogen-bonding between amino acids in the protein.
A similar but easier to see example is ceviche - when you add the citrus juice (acidic) to raw fish, of lemon juice to smoked salmon, you can actually see the protein being denatured. It becomes sort of cloudy.

For pheasants, I’d tended to be lazy and just whack a couple of rashers of streaky bacon over the bird and roast. It’s another way of preventing it drying too much. Frankly it’s not a wonderful recipe, but it is fast and idiotproof which ticks my boxes.

 

[Dalua]

For pheasants, I’d tended to be lazy and just whack a couple of rashers of streaky bacon over the bird and roast. It’s another way of preventing it drying too much. Frankly it’s not a wonderful recipe, but it is fast and idiotproof which ticks my boxes.

This is what I tend to do if roasting. Perhaps also a bit of butter with chopped apple and onion loosely poked inside, if that sounds tasty?

 

[Bavarianbrit]

Back in 1968 myself and a pal went out on a poach (my first and last BTW) he shot a pheasant with his .410 bolt action Webley then took it home. He had no idea so went to the library took out a game book, hang for 5 day then pluck and roast says said book. His mum did that but the book never mentioned taking out the guts. They could not go into the kitchen for two days.
Good luck with the cooking Olaf.

 

[enfieldspares]

Hello. I hope this helps. Hanging game is one of those old myths that improved in the telling. Tales of hanging the thing by its neck until the body fell off from the neck or even hanging until the skin turns green! Some say a day, others two, three days, others not at all or others for "at least a week".

In truth it depends on the temperature and that depends on if you can hang outside (absolutely free from flies) or "hang" inside an chilled environment. In below freezing point weather I have had birds left outside for four or five days. In the weather presently here in the UK 7 degrees C (or 44 degrees F) I would not even want to hang outside for a day.

The guide I would use is consider what they call the "danger zone" in food storage. That is above 8 degrees C (or 46 degrees F). Above that bacteria multiply up to the top end of the "danger zone" which is the cooking temperature at which bacteria are killed - so that upper limit is irrelevant for "hanging" purposes.

Thus as long as you can "hang" below that 8 degrees C (or 46 degrees F) you could hang for a day or two. If the temperature is a lot lower then hang for a day or so longer. ALL THIS ASSUMES THE BIRD IS INTACT AND NOT BADLY SMASHED UP OR WITH THE BOWELS EXPOSED.

If hanging outside leave the insides in. And the feathers on. Why? Because irrespective of those old myths that it improves the flavour the real best reason is that you haven't been poking about making ways for bacteria to enter the bird. So don't pluck or draw the bird until the time that you then either intend to cook it or to put in into your fridge or chiller to cook it later that day or the next day.

Some traditionally left the feet on. I tend to break the feet at the joint and the draw the tendons from the legs by cutting the skin only at that joint so that pulling the feet pulls the tendons out. Pheasant tendons are not as terrible as turkey tendons but they out to be pulled out before cooking.

I always whichever way up put a peeled onion in the chest cavity and if you are making a gravy the birds neck, liver and the properly cleaned gizzard. If you aren't making a gravy then you could just as well thrown the neck, liver and gizzard in the bin with the rest of the innards.

WIPE THE CHEST CAVITY OUT WITH SUCCESSIVE DRY PAPER TOWELS UNTIL THESE NO LONGER SHOW BLOOD. NEVER EVER RUN THE THING "UNDER THE TAP" LIKE THOSE AWFUL JULIA CHILD ROAST CHICKEN VIDEOS THE AMERICANS LIKED.

Serve the bird IMHO with the sort of vegetables that it would encounter at that time of year. So seasonal vegetables. That could be roast potatoes, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale and the like. Carrots or parsnips too. But not really green beans nor peas!

As a sauce a good gravy, or a bread sauce if you wanted. But no Yorkshire puddings! Save them for roast beef! And no stuffing either!

Cooking there's all sorts of favourite ways that work. Seasoning and then barding the bird (look it up) or putting streaky bacon over the back that you then remove for the last twenty minutes and "dredge" the bird with seasoned flour. Others says roast the bird upside down.

Again some roast naked. I roast with the bird to start in a very hot oven but with it wrapped in a parcel of greaseproof paper and tin foil. That way later you turn the heat down and open up the parcel so allowing the bacon to crisp and the breast to brown.

 

[Heym SR20]

Buy a chicken.

 

[Freeforester]

Hello. I hope this helps. Hanging game is one of those old myths that improved in the telling. Tales of hanging the thing by its neck until the body fell off from the neck or even hanging until the skin turns green! Some say a day, others two, three days, others not at all or others for "at least a week".

In truth it depends on the temperature and that depends on if you can hang outside (absolutely free from flies) or "hang" inside an chilled environment. In below freezing point weather I have had birds left outside for four or five days. In the weather presently here in the UK 7 degrees C (or 44 degrees F) I would not even want to hang outside for a day.

The guide I would use is consider what they call the "danger zone" in food storage. That is above 8 degrees C (or 46 degrees F). Above that bacteria multiply up to the top end of the "danger zone" which is the cooking temperature at which bacteria are killed - so that upper limit is irrelevant for "hanging" purposes.

Thus as long as you can "hang" below that 8 degrees C (or 46 degrees F) you could hang for a day or two. If the temperature is a lot lower then hang for a day or so longer. ALL THIS ASSUMES THE BIRD IS INTACT AND NOT BADLY SMASHED UP OR WITH THE BOWELS EXPOSED.

If hanging outside leave the insides in. And the feathers on. Why? Because irrespective of those old myths that it improves the flavour the real best reason is that you haven't been poking about making ways for bacteria to enter the bird. So don't pluck or draw the bird until the time that you then either intend to cook it or to put in into your fridge or chiller to cook it later that day or the next day.

Some traditionally left the feet on. I tend to break the feet at the joint and the draw the tendons from the legs by cutting the skin only at that joint so that pulling the feet pulls the tendons out. Pheasant tendons are not as terrible as turkey tendons but they out to be pulled out before cooking.

I always whichever way up put a peeled onion in the chest cavity and if you are making a gravy the birds neck, liver and the properly cleaned gizzard. If you aren't making a gravy then you could just as well thrown the neck, liver and gizzard in the bin with the rest of the innards.

WIPE THE CHEST CAVITY OUT WITH SUCCESSIVE DRY PAPER TOWELS UNTIL THESE NO LONGER SHOW BLOOD. NEVER EVER RUN THE THING "UNDER THE TAP" LIKE THOSE AWFUL JULIA CHILD ROAST CHICKEN VIDEOS THE AMERICANS LIKED.

Serve the bird IMHO with the sort of vegetables that it would encounter at that time of year. So seasonal vegetables. That could be roast potatoes, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale and the like. Carrots or parsnips too. But not really green beans nor peas!

As a sauce a good gravy, or a bread sauce if you wanted. But no Yorkshire puddings! Save them for roast beef! And no stuffing either!

Cooking there's all sorts of favourite ways that work. Seasoning and then barding the bird (look it up) or putting streaky bacon over the back that you then remove for the last twenty minutes and "dredge" the bird with seasoned flour. Others says roast the bird upside down.

Again some roast naked. I roast with the bird to start in a very hot oven but with it wrapped in a parcel of greaseproof paper and tin foil. That way later you turn the heat down and open up the parcel so allowing the bacon to crisp and the breast to brown.

Always stuff ours copiously with breadcrumb & oatmeal, finely chopped apple, apricot, onion, sage, salt & pepper. The neck, liver and heart form the basis of the jus.

The stuffing is much appreciated in this house.

 

[enfieldspares]

Last save the carcass and boil it up then strain the liquid and you've a nice base for a soup. Or just in fact drink on its own as a refreshing hot reviver if you out a drop of sherry in it.

 

[sich1]

only thing i can offer is to cover the breasts by draping bacon over the breasts so it keeps in a bit of moisture.
p.s. only do this to the pheasant, not the mrs !