So onto the cooking of pheasants and other gamebirds, but if you missed my Q & A article on game birds, other wild meats and the cooking of, you can find it here http://www.dawlish.com/article/details/138
Most game birds will be tough by thier very nature, therefore they require more cooking than a domestic, farm raised bird of a similar size. I some birds the amount of meat obtained from the legs is not worth the bother, so they tend to get discarded and only the breast is used. On the other hand, if we are talking ostrich and emu, the meat is 100% from the leg, well the thigh area anyway.
general cooking of
Can game bird meat be eaten pink? Most definately, as long as the bird is young. BUT if not cooked properly it could be a somewhat on the tough side. Professional chefs can get this right when pan frying breasts of certain birds, probably 95% of the time, due to experience and ensuring they use young birds. But for the inexperienced, I always recommend staying away from pan frying, therefore all my recipes here will be based on full roasting, butter roasting (poele), braising and stewing. Each or either dish should have something to suit everyone's tastes, from creamy to spicy and fairly plain, sweet and creamy or salty and tomato flavoured.
I hate waste, and it makes me cringe when I see the offal of game birds being wasted. Retain the liver, the kidney and heart and gently cook them in butter with some finely chopped onion and garlic and some bacon fat. Whizz this up in a food processor with a little cream cheese to puree, season and chill it down for a pate. All be it a tiny amount, but serve it on croutons to accompany your roasted bird, Or chop them up, saute and add them to your sauce or gravy to enrichen it, or simply season and pan fry them and eat them while hot (what we call the Chef's perk)
cooking times
The general accepted times for (normal) roasting of game birds are below. But, these times are guidelines only, it will be dependant on the size, age and condition of the bird. I suggest therefore that the bird be tested approx. 3/4's the way through the recommended cooking times and be adjusted as required. To test; cut the skin that joins the leg to the breast and gently pull the leg away from the breast, this thigh joint is the last to cook due to the heat penetration. Therefore you can judge just how pink you prefer it at this joint.
resting
Always be sure to remove the bird from the oven, then place on a clean tray, cover with tinfoil and allow to rest for 10 minutes prior to carving. Resting is essential, as the meat cooks the fibres tense and the cooked proteins push the juices to the centre. Resting allows the fibres or cooked proteins of the meat to relax and the natural juices to be evenly spread throughout. If the bird is cut too soon after cooking, the meat will not be mouth tender, the juices released onto the carving board thus drying the meat out and the meat slices to can even curl.
