Cooking with Tallyrand
RECIPE PHEASANT - AA recipe article
Pheasant season is soon upon us; Oct 01 - Jan 31. So with that in mind, I was asked about how to cook them, but before we get into cooking them, lets explore a little about pheasants, gamebirds & wildfoods in general. If you want to skip ahead to the recipes, they can be found here http://www.dawlish.com/article/details/139
For the 16 years I was on the West Coast we held the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival, a celebration of the wildfoods available on the coast and just wildfoods in general. The festival was held over a long weekend every March, with a full on event held on the Saturday. The normal population of Hokitika is approx. 3000, yet ticket sales were usually in excess of 20,000! People came from all over the area, NZ and of course international visitors, so was its popularity. Stalls were set up on a green, selling anything from wildberry pies to mountain sheep testicles, from locally gathered mussels to scorpion moonshine, from worm chocolates to live huhu grubs, from wild goat curry to venison steak pie. Basically if it could be caught, netted, gathered, shot etc it would be sold. It would be a real carnival atmosphere with those attending going all out with fancy dress (just like with the rugby 7 crowds). With the younger crowd daring each other on to see who could eat the worse thing they could find.
Every year my involvement changed and developed, from being part of the organising commitee to guest chef, demonstrating dishes to the crowd. If you would like see more about this festival have a look at thier website at http://www.wildfoods.co.nz/
So, gamebirds and wildfoods in general are something I am very familiar with.
hanging game birds
most game birds are hung, unplucked, by the neck prior to cooking. This is to allow the flesh to essentially rot in a controlled way and enviroment, making the flesh tender, and increasing it in flavour. It allows for the blood to be retained and spread evenly through the body. This can be for anything from 2 to 8 days depending on the age and size of the bird along with personal taste. It used to be done (and probably still is) by being left hung in a barn etc, until the body fell away from the head. But for hygiene reasons I am going to recommend playing it safe and just leaving the plucked bird in the fridge for a week (in a sealed, airtight container)
hanging game (non birds)
The likes of deer, chamois etc, are usually hung by the hind legs with the throat slit to drain the blood out of the body, often this drained blood is used for sausages and black puddings.
Lets have a look at questions I was often asked when demonstrating how to cook various dishes based on game birds etc. Most of which will be relevent to the UK, even though for example we don't get too much wild boar, but the principles are the same
| QUESTION | Why is the meat from wild animals generally a lot tougher, compared to farm reared meat? |
| ANSWER | Its because these animals roam or are flying free, constantly searching for food, sometimes for 20 hours of the day. Therefore thier muscles are in constant use |
| QUESTION | Why is the meat from wild animals generally drier, have less fat and a lot darker in colour? |
| ANSWER |
Again, this has to do with the way they live and move around so much. The meat is drier, because of the lack of fat. The lack of fat is due to the amount of exercise they get, having to constantly be on the move looking for food to survive. The reason the meat is so dark, is because of the increased blood flow to all areas due to this movement and the same reason is why on domestic birds, e.g turkey, the leg has dark meat and the breast is white meat. |
| QUESTION | So does this explain why the breast is more tender, but the leg is fuller in flavour? |
| ANSWER | Yes, and also why on lamb for example, the hind leg may be more tender, but the shoulder has a better flavour, the shoulder does more work than the hind legs. Even when still and grazing, the shoulder muscles are getting a workout as the head moves. Or why rump steak has more flavour than fillet steak but is less tender. It is all to do with the positioning and use |
| QUESTION | If it contains less fat, does that mean game meat is healthier for you than domestic, farmed raised meats |
| ANSWER | The short answer is yes, as long as you dont re-introduce too much fat to it when cooking. It is lower in cholesterol and does contain a lot more iron; essentially the darker the meat the more iron it contains. |
| QUESTION | I had wild boar last summer and it was delicious, the meat was sweet and succulent. I had some this winter and the meat seemed stronger in flavour, was drier, tought and had no where near the niceness of flavour. Why? |
| ANSWER |
You've all heard the expression "you are what you eat"? This is exactly the case here. During the summer months, the boar is likely to be feeding on berries and nuts, which have a high sugar content which effects the meat's flavour. They will also be in abundance, therefore, it isn't having to roam about as much so it will be more tender. This is why for example corn fed chickens have a far better flavour than those fed on pellets, and why people feed mollasses to pigs for several weeks prior to slaughter. |
