Pheasant Flambe!

By fletch Monday, December 7th, 2009

I was recently given a couple of Pheasants. Proper country style, fully feathered and hung by the neck. Jens friends husband shot them and had hung them for about 5 days before I was kindly donated “a brace” (that means two of them) one lunchtime.

They spent half a day in and our of cold car-boots at work before I could get them home and then a further two days hanging again in my larder, AKA where the gas bottles are kept.

You see the longer you “hang” game for the more gamey it tastes and the older the birds are the more hanging they should have. I’d aged the birds by looking at the condition and flexibilty of their beaks and feet and decided that a couple more days would do them some good.

Whilst the birds are hanging they’re pretty much just decomposing but quite slowly, and all the flavours from the innards go into the bits of meat you want to eat. As long as it’s not too warm and there’s good airflow (the gas holder at the front of the boat is perfect for this, as well as being safe from foxes) then it won’t go all mushy and actually “rot” in the traditional sense.

Anyhow after a hard Saturday (see tomorrows post) I set about the pheasants with the knife that Ray the Butcher gave me back in February and using as much skill as I could muster I cut the breast and legs out of the pungent birds. I removed all the guts and once all the feathers had settled, I had myself a dish full of good looking meat!

Quite a sense of achievement in doing all that work, but it was also a bit of a ballacher, mainly because 12ft of kitchen space isn’t really enough space to pretend to be a butcher in.

Pheasant Flambe from fletch.cx on Vimeo.

On Sunday I cooked it all up into a “Pheasant au Vin” part of which involves flambeing the flour-seasoned meat in brandy, it was easily the most spectacular part of the preparation as you can see above and I’ll let you know how it actually tastes tonight!

bye bye!

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Hello! Fletch.cx has been going since 1999 in one form or another, yep incredible, when will it end? For more of my bullshit see last.fm, lluckj.com, facebook and if you really want a constant avalanche of musings, observations and lies then follow me on twitter..