I just got a brace of pheasants....

[Kebab]

A mate of mine just gave me a brace of pheasants (his dad hunted them and i said id have them), complete with feathers and all. They've been hanging for around 10days now in a well ventilated shed. My question is what do i do next?

I ve been looking around and all i can find are recipes. I dont know for how long I need to leave them to hang and if there is a particular method i need to use to feather them and if I empty by the back side or if there is another way.

Cheers for the advice.

Keb

[Nick]

Okey dokey.

When you're hanging them, all you're doing is tenderising the meat and developing the flavour. The longer they hang, the stronger the 'gamey' flavour will be.

This time of year, with it being colder, they'll take a little longer to hang, go for maybe 4 days to a week. In summer, a couple of days is usually enough for most people.

DON'T draw (gut) the birds first, just hang them up by the neck.

Once you're happy they've hung long enough, pluck them, then gut them. Best way I've found for plucking is to wear a rubber washing up glove and grab the feathers in small tufts, then short sharp yanks against the direction of growth. Start at the bum and work your way forwards.

To clean them, get a sharp knife and take the head of as high up as possible. At the other end, make a slit in the skin from the bum up to the bottom of the ribcage, open it up and hook all the guts out. Try not to pierce of burst the guts as the juices in there can spoil the meat.

Move back to the neck, slit it down to the crop (its like a bag full of grain, you'll probably find grain in there). Don't split the crop open, just pull it out as one and discard.

Now dislocate the neck, cut through with the knife as close to the breast bone as poss and you're nearly done.

The only thing left is to cut the feet off where the scaley skin gives way to normal skin and then either give the whole thing a quick blast all over with a blowtorch to remove any small feathers or hairs or just run it over an open gas flame to do the same thing.

I have a recipe at work for cooking them, so I'll post that up tomorrow when I'm back in.

[Nick]

Here ya go!

Pot Roasted Pheasant

Serves 4
Prep Time: 20 mins
Cooking time: 1-1 ½ hours

Ingredients

2 pheasants, cleaned
50g butter
1tbsp vegetable oil
12 shallots, peeled
2 bay leaves
4 sprigs thyme
50ml brandy
425ml red wine
2 tbsp tomato puree
300ml light chicken stock
4 rashers streaky bacon


Method

Melt the butter and oil together in a heavy based deep pan then season
the pheasant.

Place the pheasant into the pan and seal on all sides.

Add the shallots and brown then add the bacon and fry for two minutes.

Pour over the brandy and flame.

Add the red wine and stock and bring up to a simmer.

Add the bay leaf, tomato puree and the sprigs of thyme.

Cover with a lid and place into the oven, cook gently for approximately 1 hour,
until tender.

When cooked remove the bird and keep warm.

Strain the liquid into a saucepan and reduce by half.

To thicken add a piece of beurre Manie and whisk in. Bring back to the boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for five minutes.

To serve, pour the sauce over the pheasants on a platter and portion at the table.

[Ceefer]

If you can't be bothered to pluck the pheasants (and it IS a right pain in the *** nomatter what people might tell you) then you can skin them very easily. After skinning and then gutting wrap the birds in streaky bacon and roast just like a chicken. Delicious.

And if you can't be bothered with plucking OR gutting then just cut out the breast fillets - very easily done, just make sure your knife is very sharp. I very often do this at this time of year as I get so many pheasants given to me. The breast meat can be used in many ways but my favourite of all is in a curry!

[Zak33]

my turn been a bit bust at work to notice this thread BUUUT having shot more than a few Pheasants and roasty toasted 'em up

Pluck the bird IN A BIN BAG......ie put it in a bin bag, put your hands in the bin bag with it, and pluck it like that. Saves monster feather mess.

Next.....frankly I hate hanging them. Pheasant is DELICIOUS FRESH
but as you have TWO try one now and one in a 4 or 5 days.
SO ....pluck one. Cut its feet off. Cut its head off. Slice up its belly a little and pull out its innards. Cut the wings off wherever you can get too....with pheasant its ALL BREAST MEAT....and trust me...it is the FINEST and most beatiful bird EVER Just getting hungry THINKING about it.

Roast it like Deckard says.....

or....

(hides for being a simpleton)

Just roast it. Dont do ANYTHING else other than gut it, and pluck it and head and wing it. If its all rinmsed with fresh water, and you dry it with kitchen roll....then bit of oil in a roasting tin.

and roast at Gas Mark 6 for about an hour. Maybe a tad less. Just make sure the oven in HOT first. You see with WILD birds, the bird is NOT full of water (unlike supermarket chicken and turkey), but marbled with natural fat ....lovely healthy fat.
Why do I say healthy? Cos it is. Fat heats up FASTER than water....much faster...so the bird cooks faster. The fat melts and pools in the roasting tin. And there not much of it. and it comes out of the bird

Then when you can put your knife in its breast and the juices run out clear wrap it in FOIL and leave it......to stand....and finish off ya other stuff.

DONT roast spuds in with it.....do them in different tray

Then....that breast meat is very easy to carve...in fact if you just find the centre breat bone (sticks up like a ridge) put ya knife in one side and slice along and round and down.....pull off breasst meat. Slice on a plate and serve..do other side.

ANd for gravy?

hmm...I am STARVING at the thought now

Degalze the pan with either red or white wine. SO put the roasting pan on the hob...full heat....when its hot pour in a glass of wine, and stir with a wooden spoon....once its boiling, and all the bits are off the bottom on the tray, pour into a glass jug and use a spoon to take the fat off the top...

then stir and pour over as gravy

lucky man..Pheasant is the finest

[Wolfsbane2k]

Age old bump of resurrection.
Just been given 6 birds, currently hanging, not sure how old they are.
So going to try a few things, pheasant and chestnut pie will take 2 of them up!

[peterb]

11 years? That must be a record. The OPs pheasants should be ready to draw by now!

[Wolfsbane2k]

Quite possibly! But since it came up first or second on Google with 'given first brace of pheasants hour to prepare?' it had to be done!

[peterb]

Quite possibly! But since it came up first or second on Google with 'given first brace of pheasants hour to prepare?' it had to be done!

Well, I suppose the date of the thread is about the date you (and I) joined the forums!

[Zak33]

trim off the breast meat from two and cube roughly.

Fry genltly in butter with small amount of sliced onion....and then sprinkle flour in to thicken and make a roux (ie all ther butter sticks to the flour and chicken..)

pour in chicken stock (1 chicken stock cube to 500ml boiling water), a little at a time stirring with wooden spoon to make a thick....gently bubbling pie and gravy filling. Keep adding until you have beautiful sauce with pheasant in it. Leave on low heat to simmer for few minutes while you.....

Make shortcrust pastry
(200 g plain flour, pinch salt... 50 g butter, 50 g lard... rub together or blitz in processor... add cold water in blitzer or with wooden spoon until you have firm dry dough)

pour pheasant and gravy into pie dish.

roll out pastry on DRY work surface with more flour.....and put over pie.

bake at 180C until the pastry is brown and the pie is oozing out of the sides


Pheasant pie... utter heaven