Pheasant in Mushroom and Cream Sauce

bentley pheasant supreme

January 11, 2013

A friend of mine sent me the above recipes a couple of days ago. I had a brace of pheasant in the fridge and thought both dishes sounded worth trying. However, I couldn’t help thinking that mushrooms should go in the first one and then I had some pancetta rather than bacon… Things got out of control and I ended up making something similar but different. I can’t for the life of me find these inspirational recipes on the web and the friend who sent them was house sitting so the book belongs to someone else. If anyone knows where these recipes come from please let me know, so that I can give credit where it’s due – in fact the book might be quite good and worth buying!

pheasant and stock vegetables

Pheasant in Mushroom and Cream Sauce recipe serves 2 greedy people):

1 large pheasant (plucked)
6 pieces of pancetta (chopped) or 4 slices of streaky bacon
1 large onion (peeled)
1 large onion (chopped)
3 small carrots
2 sticks of celery
6 pieces of garlic (peeled)
6 pieces of garlic (finely chopped)
8 button mushrooms (chopped)
a sprig of rosemary, sage and thyme
2 bay leaves
a pinch of sea salt and a few black peppercorns (8 or so)
ground sea salt
cracked black pepper
1 dessertspoonful of plain flour
3 dessertspoonfuls of crème fraîche
1 egg (beaten)
a knob of butter
olive oil
a splash of dry vermouth
1/2 lb stale sourdough bread turned into breadcrumbs
1 1/2 pints of water

skim off the foam

For the stock:

Put the pheasant, herbs, 1 whole onion (peeled), carrots, celery, 6 pieces of garlic, the herbs, a pinch of sea salt and the 8 black peppercorns into a cast iron casserole, along with the water. Heat your oven to 150º C, while you bring the water in the casserole to almost boiling. Skim off any froth or scum on top of the water, place the lid on the casserole and put it in the oven for one hour. Do turn the pheasant over half way through. When done, remove the pheasant, allow it to cool and reserve the stock. When the pheasant is cool, remove and chop all the meat – discard the bones.

Breadcrumbs:

I used 1/2 lb of stale St. John sourdough bread, but you can buy breadcrumbs if necessary. If you’ve never made breadcrumbs before, I have some instructions here.

pancetta

Once you have breadcrumbs, fry the chopped pancetta or bacon in some butter. When it’s crispy, stir in the breadcrumbs and allow to cook for a minute or so, then leave to cool.

 The main dish:

onions and mushrooms

Fry the chopped onion in olive oil and when it goes translucent, stir in the chopped garlic and mushrooms. When the mushrooms have been coated in oil, sprinkle on the flour and stir it in. Add the chopped pheasant and pour on 1/2 a pint of stock. Allow this to bubble gently while you mix the egg and crème fraîche in a separate dish. Do use full fat French crème fraîche, the diet version is likely to split when heated.  When mixed, stir in some pheasant stock (up to half a pint) until it makes a  thick sauce.

cream sauce

Pour the sauce into the main pheasant dish along with a splash of dry vermouth. Stir everything in and taste. This is the time to add salt and pepper if necessary.

breadcrumbs and pancetta

Allow the pheasant and cream to cool down for five minutes, then turn on the grill and sprinkle the pancetta and breadcrumb mixture on top of the casserole to cover the sauce.

pheasant in mushroom and cream sauce with breadcrumbs

Grill for 5 – 10 minutes, low down in the oven, until the breadcrumbs are crispy – do be careful not to burn them, so keep an eye on it.

I suspected that the breadcrumbs would absorb a lot of liquid, so I made up some additional cream sauce to go with the pheasant. Heat a knob of butter in a small saucepan and when it has melted stir in a dessertspoonful of flour to make a roux. Slowly mix in 2 dessertspoonfuls of crème fraîche, followed by some of the leftover pheasant stock until you have a thick cream pheasant sauce.

Serve the above with boiled potatoes and Brussels sprouts. I impressed myself, this was absolutely delicious, as I imagined, from the original  recipe.

I washed mine down with a glass or two of Marquesa de la Cruz, a Garnacha, Syrah, Mazuelo from Aragon.

Other pheasant posts