It's all in the game: Roast Pheasant

First shoot, pluck and draw your pheasant. I will be putting a link here for those that wish to know the ins and outs of doing this (along with skinning and paunching a hare). I won't put the photo's on here as it can be a bit off putting for the squeamish.

Wash inside and out and dry your picked over pheasant(to remove any small wispy feathers and missed pieces of shot).

bunch of root vegetables

10 allspice berries

1 staranis

5 juniper berries

2.5 cm piece of cinammon

5 cloves

10 black pepper corns

3 dried bay leaves and 3 dried curry leaves

Crushed and mixed in with the root veg in the roasting pan

Push butter under the breast skin working it well in,

dust the inside with salt and pepper, rub over with salt, pepper and my game spice. Place a mandarine pulled into segments into the cavity. Cover the breast with some fatty bacon (belly not back) or speck scheiben.

Place on a bed of diced root veg and (Suppengrün) and spices in a roasting pan just big enough to accommodate, pour in enough stock (I had game stock left over, but chicken of vegetable stock will do) to cover the vegetables.

Put into a very hot oven (220°C) for 10 minutes to brown, then reduce the heat to 175-180°C and cook covered with aluminium foil for a further 20 minutes or until the juices run clear.

Remove from the oven, cover and allow to rest. The meat should be juicy, it is often the case that when the breasts are perfect the legs are still tough, I think it better to go for the moist breasts, cut the legs off and cook them a little longer (or better still use them in a game ragout or filling for a game pie).

We had it served on the bed of root vegetables and accommpanied by:

Creamed cheesy leeks:

Slice the white and light green of a leek (or 2)

Slice a red onion

Crush and chop a clove of garlic

50 g of speck (bacon pieces)

200 ml of stock

100 ml of cream

200 g of good strong cheese (appenzeller, greuytzer or good Cheddar) grated

Fry the speck in a little oil until it starts to give off its fat

Add the Onion and garlic and fry until translucent

Add the leeks and sweat to remove the rawness

Pour in the stock and simmer covered until the leeks are soft and the stock reduced

Pour in the cream, add the cheese, finished!!!

Mashed lumpy mustard spuds and turnip (swede) (turnip could have done with a few more minutes, I will never learn).

1kg of floury potatoes,

500 g of Turnip (Swede)

2 teaspoons of mustard powder (Colmans)

Good knob of butter

50 ml cream

Salt and pepper to taste