Pot-roast pheasant with butternut squash, Savoy cabbage and onion

The BSG is a game lover. However, after a bad experience with a sinewy, over-exercised rabbit we picked up in Lincoln a few years back, I haven’t been able to separate that gamey taste from a tough-as-old-boots food memory, so I’ve shied away from it somewhat.  So the prospect of three pheasants in our fridge, ready for the eating, filled me with dread. They say you must face your fears, so I thought I’d tackle mine head on…

When I asked the BSG what to do with it earlier that day, I received a very casual one line email: just bung it in a pot with the veg we’ve got left in the bowl and some stock and wine and cook for about 45 minutes. Easy.

OK, I thought, I can do casual, even though all I could think about was overcooking the damn thing, its stringy carcass languishing in thin, insipid juices. I made sure we had emergency freezer supplies, just in case…

But actually, what resulted was really rather good – helped by a pleasantly mild-tasting bird – and I’ll be doing it again. Not to mention easy; the very definition of a one-pot wonder. Two of us ate well, so figure that this recipe would serve three… It is easily multiplied, but increase the cooking times.

 

You need:

1 onion, roughly chopped

2 bay leaves

3 juniper berries

1 large glass red wine

1/2 pint of stock

1 whole pheasant

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1/2 a butternut squash, deseeded, peeled and chopped into 1 inch pieces

1/4 savoy cabbage, sliced

a lump of beurre manié: half softened butter and plain flour (optional – or add flour to the onions at the beginning)

 

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees.

In a heavy based lidded pan, sweat the onions in a little oil over a medium heat until they start to colour. Add the bay leaves and juniper berries – plus a tablespoon or two of plain flour if you want to thicken the sauce.

Deglaze the pan with the red wine and add the stock. Sit the pheasant in the pan amongst the onions, add the butternut squash pieces, garlic and season. Put the lid on the pan (I added a foil cartouche as well because I thought I ought to but I’m not ever really sure what this does. It just felt right).

Put into the oven for 45 minutes or so, turning the bird over halfway through (again – this just feels proper as I always do it with my roast chicken to keep the breast moist).

Remove the pot from the oven. Check the bird is cooked then rest it on a board and take out the squash from the pan whilst you reduce the sauce over a good heat – here you can whisk in the beurre manié to thicken if you like. Season to taste. Return the squash to the pan and add the cabbage. Put the lid on the pan and let this all cook for a further 7 minutes.

Carve the pheasant breast, joint the legs and serve in a bowl on top of the vegetables with plenty of sauce poured over, like a stewy soup (yes, you’ll need a spoon too).

For extra pleasure, I recommend mashing the squash into the gravy with the back of your fork. Watch out for lead shot – it’s in there somewhere and your molars will thank you for it.

Game on…

Steep hills and sloe business

The BSG’s ‘motherland’ is the Isle of Wight, so what better place to spend the August bank holiday than on its beaches in the sun - during those ‘sunny intervals’, at least.
And this is exactly what we did, along with his mum and some of our great friends.

Steephill Cove in the south coast of the island is like a scene plucked from a Blyton-esque seaside adventure. Reached solely by a path or two (anything big comes down in a wheelbarrow apparently), there stands a small cluster of houses, beach huts and shacks. As you pick your way along the seafront around the lobster pots and gaily coloured buoys, small cafes and restaurants become distinct among the nooks and crannies in the weather-worn wood – it couldn’t be more quintessential had a film set-dresser gone wild on it.

At the café at the end, and out of the cool south-westerly wind that had, I discovered, acted as the burning sun’s accomplice that morning as I lolled idly in my deckchair, we feasted upon shocking pink prawns (to match our sunburn) and fresh crab baguettes. Completing the spread were doorstop slices of brown bread and butter, which would have been oh so Milly-Molly-Mandy if it hadn’t all been rather decadently washed down with a lovely sparkling wine. All very jolly, which absolutely has to be the right word, and although the allergic BSG had to make do with coronation chicken, there were no complaints from him.

It being a UK bank holiday, the weather then set in slightly, so we embarked on another mission, to be completed in May next year, at our wedding. We had been thinking for ages about putting our own stamp on the reception as we love making things, so sloe gin seemed the perfect answer. Ruby coloured and syrupy, it always strikes a festive note, and goes well with cake and cheese.

The BSG makes much of the island’s special ‘microclimate’, so when his 101-year old great aunt - still going strong and as sharp as Paxman – told us that sloes would be out and where to find them, I could well believe that she’d be right. As their location must remain secret for posterity I am stopping here, but needless to say Auntie Pad hasn’t lost her magic - the crop was abundant, and there is still a lot more for picking later on, if you know where to look. We soldiered through the bushes as they did their best to fight us off – ouch.

Once frozen overnight, pricked (sweet revenge), sugared and sloshed, those 5 kilos (!) of sloes are working their jewelled magic. As a bonus, we have found another use for them, once they are out of the bottle in a few months’ time. Flicking through a book on preserves, we came across a recipe for a sloe gin and juniper jelly – great with game apparently. It’s all feeling rather rich and autumn-y to me. Surely summer's not packed its bags just yet?