Cooking previously frozen pheasant - somewhat plainly?

My husband and I have never had pheasant, and are curious because we like quails and ducks so much.

Someone at his workplace gave us two frozen pheasants from a hunting trip of his recently. They are currently thawing in the refrigerator.

We'd like to just basically roast these to try to get a true feel of what pheasant tastes like.

Still, I have no idea of brining or otherwise pre-salting - do they tend to be tough and dry, or not...

Some searching around sounded like dry might be a tendency.

I'm not worried about this being some excellent perfect meal. I just want to know if I like pheasant, so if it's on the menu of some restaurant would I want to order it....

I can't figure out why I don't like turkey, so I'm not not sure about all birds. And give me a 2.5 lb chicken over a cornish hen any day....

Nancy

Brining is recommended for just about any bird, and doubly so for game.
I've seen Alton Brown recommend small coolers for brining if you don't have a suitable vessel that will fit your bird.

Here's a link to a brine Emeril has used:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes ... 81,00.html
(scroll down for the brine)

For a pheasant, I might recommend different herbs, perhaps sage or juniper berries (common for game), but the rosemary and thyme are standards. I'm not as certain I'd use oranges. You could substitute some wine vinegar or cider vinegar.

One of the best poultry dishes I ever ate was in a restaurant in Milan (Italy), featuring a roasted breast of pheasant, finished with a sauce of brandy and butter (deglazing the pan with said ingredients). Heavenly.

Pheasants in stores and restaurants are all farmed birds for legal reasons and will normally be from that year's spring hatch. The same will normally apply for birds shot in a licensed shooting preserve although there is a small chance that a wild bird managed to sneak in.

OP mentions that these birds were given by a hunter and so may be true wild birds. That means that age is uncertain. Old pheasants can be pretty tough and dry. Pheasants over a year old really need cooking methods using moist heat. The age tests I know all need to be done in the field or soon after, certainly before the bird is dressed (beak flexibility anyone?). I haven't hunted in close to 50 years, so my memory may be a little fuzzy on the tests.

Pheasants do tend to be pretty lean with all that implies for dangers from overcooking. Older recipes often called for barding (tieing a thin layer of fat over the breast) when roasting. Butter under the skin before roasting is another trick. My memory is that neither is necessary as long as you are very careful not to overcook.

We decided to treat this somewhat like a Zuni Roast Chicken, but with less salt than that book recommends (and therefore more salt-ahead time) as the Zuni Roast Chicken isn't OK for my blood pressure (though it was OK for my husband's, I just have an issue).

These birds were skinned up to their heads which still looked like pretty pheasants, eyes, beak and all. Well, hacked them off at the neck and discarded as I really don't know what to do with head of pheasant, feathers and all.

Salted the rest of the bird and parked in the refrigerator for 3 days.

Roasted in in a terra cotta pot ala "Good Eats" because that simply is a fantastic roasting method. (Ask if you want more info).

We cooked the bird to 160, but found it to be undercooked on one side so flipped it and intended to pull it at 165. Darn Polder went off the first time but not the second so we ended up cooking it to 180.

It cooked super fast in a 475 degree "terra cotta oven".

We feel we overcooked it but not to the point of wrecking it.

My husband liked it quite a lot.

I didn't enjoy it so much - in a very similar way to how I don't enjoy turkey that much. But I did like the thigh meat the best, same with turkeys.

I'd say turkeys and pheasants are similar. Not my palate.
Chickens and quails are similar. Love em.
Ducks are from outer space and super yummy.

But then I've never had any other birds but squab, which was closer to the chicken end, but gamy. Who knows, maybe something else does eat like duck....

Well, we don't go out to eat very often, so I was glad to see how I felt about this meat instead of risking my whole entree on a bird I don't like.

Now wouldn't it be nice if a restaurant had a many tiny course tasting menu of game and/or unusual meats, along with unusual produce? Could be quite an education, and probably could manage to pass on a course or two...

Nancy

remember that of all the game birds, pheasant was traditionally cooked when the most "high" - that is, the most aged.

If you can't hang it in the traditional manner -- letting the unwrapped bird sit on a rack over a cooking sheet in the refrigerator for 4 or 5 days (or more) should add traditional flavor to the roast.

Nancy,

I'm sorry I didn't see your request sooner as I currently have a freezer full of pheasant and duck and have been cooking them up every so often. ekreider is right about how important it is to know if the birds were farm raised or truly wild as that affects the meat. I was fortunate enough to be at my butcher's one Sunday afternoon recently while he was making up some pheasant sausage for another of his customers. I started quizzing him about seasonings and the like and he gave me a few to try. They were outstanding! I'm going to take some of our ducks over there and have him make sausage out of those.

Anyway, if you have any more pheasant, I would definitely recommend this recipe. We love it.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recip ... iews/10783

Kwe730

You say you have a freezer full of ducks. Do you find the meat freezes well as compared to how it eats fresh?

I'm more thinking of what I'd get at the grocery store. Don't remember being thrilled by the frozen duck I'd bought in the past, and the frozen quails were awful. But the fresh duck I found Thanksgiving week was great.

Nancy

Nancy,

The ducks and pheasant that I have in my freezer were the result of a couple of hunting trips that my husband took. Both places he hunted were privately owned. Once they bring the birds back in, they're cleaned, immediately packaged up and frozen. When he left both places, they handed him a nicely prepared shipping container of frozen birds. He drove home from one place, but had to get on a plane from the other. Both times the birds were still frozen solid. I think because of this the meat stays really fresh tasting. As a result of these two trips, I've never bought duck commercially. Have you had luck at any place specifically?

As far as the quail, do you roast them? My dad used to hunt quail and I believe my Mom always used a braising method to cook them. Come to think of it, she used it for pheasant as well. Where did you get the quail from?

Kim

Here is a resipe I use for the pheasant I shoot. Do NOT overcook game birds. Quail, grouse, pheasants... The only reason one would think they are dry and tough is that they are overcooked. Same thing for venison.

This is a great recipe. The last time I made it, I got a vision. A vision of pheasant stew. I cut up the meat and put it back in the sauce with potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms.

Pheasant in Sharp Sauce
from The Poultry and Game Cookbook

2 T butter
1 T vegetable oil
2 pheasants, trussed
salt
fresh ground black pepper
14 oz duck stock
1 1/2 T wine vinegar
1/4 t cayenne or red peppers
1 T butter
1 T all-purpose flour
2-3 T dry sherry
white pepper

3-4 servings
1 hour 20 minutes
10 mins prep

1. Melt the first butter with the oil in a heavy, lidded pan.
2. Brown the pheasants on all sides.
3. Season lightly with the salt and black pepper.
4. Add the stock, vinegar, cayenne or red pepper and bring to
simmering point.
5. Cover and simmer for 50-60 minutes, until tender.
6. Transfer the pheasants to a heated serving dish and keep hot while
you finish the sauce.
7. Work the butter and flour together and gradually whisk small
pieces into the stock, stirring constantly until it has all been absorbed.
8. Stir in the sherry and adjust the seasoning.
9. Simmer for 2 minutes, then spoon over the pheasants and serve.

I made this with a wild rice/basmati pilaf and truffled Brussel sprouts.

Kit

kit wrote:This is a great recipe. The last time I made it, I got a vision. A vision of pheasant stew. I cut up the meat and put it back in the sauce with potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms.

Pheasant in Sharp Sauce

Kit,

Great looking recipe, can't wait to try it out.

Enjoy,
Gary