Thanks to the tips on pheasant cooking from the lovely people at The Homely Year blog, who suggested that simplicity was the key, the pheasant was a triumph. Moist, delicious with a surprising amount of meat. Covered the bird with a big bunch of rosemary, thyme and sage (wasn’t sure what was the best so went with my instinct which tends to be “more is more”) and a few slices of organic bacon. Roasted on a high heat in a roasting pan with three fat cloves of garlic from the garden and a glass of white wine. Can you tell I’m not the sort of cook who needs to measure everything! The wine and meat juices made a lovely thin, golden gravy – especially good with the soft garlic squished in and bubbled briefly on the stove top.
The man in the corner shop was telling us that he had just sat down for his Christmas day lunch when someone nearly bashed his door down, begging to buy a Bisto gravy mix. Why would anyone swill that over their lunch when they have presumably just spent all morning roasting a perfect piece of meat or a gorgeous turkey. Why didn’t they just add a bit of wine to the meat juices and swish it around? Mad…
Ate pheasant with broccoli, carrot and swede “crush” (currently my new favourite thing), roast parsnips and Ade had perfect potatoes, roasted in goose fat. It’s so not fair. Ade is very, very thin indeed, despite us being like Jack Spratt and his wife in reverse.
Topped all this off with a warm, deep filled mince pie with a puddle of (low fat) cream. Told myself that this was to eat up more leftovers as I hate waste, however the reality is that I got ‘em out of the freezer this morning as I am quite simply greedy. I do love a mince pie, but because I eat so few of them every single of one of them should be special (I guess that should be applicable to everything we eat). Preferably home made but not necessarily, they should be warm from the oven and dusted with icing sugar. Cream is definitely an optional extra.
