PHEASANT-2 - Pheasant in the North American tradition This recipe is adapted from the exceptionally good, controlled-circulation Recipes Only Magazine. The original dish was created by Mary Richard for use in her Teepee Res- taurant, in Winnipeg. I found some of the ingredients hard to locate in a hurry and used what I had available with good results. You can substitute rock Cornish hen, guinea fowl, or chicken for the pheasant and hazelnuts, filberts or wal- nuts for the black walnuts.
1 kg hen pheasant, cleaned 1 onion, quartered 1 bay leaf 6 peppercorns 1 small carrot, sliced 1 stalk celery, sliced 5 ml salt 50 ml butter pinch powdered thyme 1 ml rosemary, dried and crumbled 20 g chopped mushrooms 30 ml flour 30 ml black walnut meats, finely chopped
(1) Split pheasant down the breastbone (or have your butcher do this). (2) Rinse the halves, place in a deep pot and barely cover with water. Add bay leaf, onion, carrot, celery, salt and peppercorns. (3) Bring to rolling boil, then turn down heat and simmer for approximately 30 minutes, or until tender. Remove foam and scum as it forms. Remove bird(s) from broth, reserving the broth. (4) Using a heavy skillet, saute the halves in 30 ml of the butter until golden. (5) Place birds into small roasting pan or casserole with just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle with thyme and rosemary. (6) Bake, lightly covered with foil, for 30-40 minutes at 175 deg. C.
(1) While the birds are in the oven, strain the broth and boil rapidly down to 500 ml (2) Brown the mushrooms using the same skillet in which you browned the pheasant. Remove the mush- rooms and keep them warm. (3) Melt the remaining 25 ml of butter in the skillet. Add the flour, stirring up the browning from the pan. (4) Cook over moderately high heat until golden brown. Blend in the broth using a wire whisk. (5) Add mushrooms and continue cooking approximately 1 - 2 minutes. Turn down heat, cover and keep warm until pheasant is roasted.
When the pheasants are cooked, remove them from the oven and scrape the herbs from the skin. After placing the pheasant halves on a warm platter (or leaving them in the casserole), pour the gravy over the pheasant. Garnish with the chopped nutmeats and serve. This dish is particularly good with wild rice.
Difficulty: easy once you have the all the ingredients ready. Time: 40 minutes preparation, 80 minutes cooking. Precision: measure the spices.
G. Roderick Singleton Syntronics Manufacturing Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada. gerry@syntron.uucp utzoo!syntron!gerry
Last modified: 9 May 2006 | 4 hits in May 2007 |