Freedom Pheasant

On my birthday, I usually get some variety of game, so it only makes sense that on our nation's birthday, this also holds true. And, since it is July, it's going to be grilled.

To mark Independence Day, my counterpart grilled up another pheasant. There are some preparations you need to make for grilling a game bird that are not necessary with a domesticated bird like your typical chicken. First, you'll need to understand that pheasants are only partially domesticated. Even the ones at the grocery store most likely were not raised on a farm but were allowed to fly freely in an open space. They don't go through a factory for cleaning and packaging like our mass-produced chickens and turkeys. They are most likely plucked and packaged by hand. This, combined with their more muscular physique, means that the first step to preparing your pheasant  is to ensure that there are no little down feathers or quills on the carcass. You'll need to remove any plucking residue by hand. 

And here's one of the rare occasions when you can use your MAP torch in the kitchen as this is a good way to finish the job. Remember you are not trying to sear the bird. You're just trying to burn off any little hairs that might remain.

To ensure even cooking on the grill, you'll want to split it down the middle, or even quarter it. We decided to quarter our bird.

Once it's split, you can season it with a little spice rub. For today's freedom pheasant, my counterpart combined mostly bitter flavors with a little heat, which tend to go well with the irony flavor of this game bird. This is a good spice mix for pheasant and other birds:

Ground oregano

Rubbed sage

Ground coriander

Chinese five spice

All spice

Red Tandoori spice

Salt

One of the problems with doing a spice rub is the presence of moisture from the cleaned bird. My counterpart resolves this by using a couple of large, shallow bowls. He placing his quarters in the first bowl for the rub. As he rubs each piece, he places it into the second bowl. Most of the moisture stays in int he first bowl, and the spices end up more evenly distributed.

For grilling meat, we are partial to the charcoal grill. It generates a nice smoke that is easily controlled for both heat and flavor. We didn't do anything fancy with any of the various types of natural wood we have been known to add to the grill. We simply started up the charcoal in our chimney starter, poured it into the grill, and let the flames die down until we had a nice smoldering heat.

Here's a nice thing you can do when grilling: place several lengthy sprigs of fresh rosemary on the grill and put your bird skin side up on the rosemary. Cover it and let it cook slowly, checking on it every so often to flip it. Ours cooked for about 90 minutes over low heat, which was long enough to cook it through without drying it out.

Once it's off the grill, you can glaze it with a sauce before serving. Glazing the bird after it is off the grill rather than while it's cooking prevents the sauce from scorching, especially if you're using a sweet sauce. And, today we definitely went sweet.

While the grilled pheasant was resting, my counterpart make a quick herbed caramel sauce using some of the same flavors from the spice rub. He sauteed fresh basil, sage, and thyme in a good amount of butter. He then added allspice and red Tandoori spice. Once the butter was completely melted, he added a splash of white wine, a couple of drops of habanero sauce, and a generous pour of King syrup. He let it boil for a few minutes before removing it from the stove and pouring it over our pheasant.

Paired with herbed potatoes, this was a spicy sweet sticky greasy mess of a perfect summer grill dinner. I live the robust and gamy flavor of pheasant. The stronger taste and firmer texture make it a superior alternative to chicken. While the price differential means it will never replace its domesticated cousin. But for something a little special from the grill, it's a very good choice.

Jerked Pheasant

What I like best about my current life is all the people from other countries I've met. My counterpart and I have met people from all over the world. The cultural exchange is really an amazing experience sometimes. We recently had lunch with a former colleague from the Islands who gave us a wonderful explanation of Jerk. It turns out it's easier than you think, but it's all about technique.

Jerk is typically a dry rub that is applied to meat before cooking. While many of us may be familiar with Jerk chicken, one if its first uses was to temper the muskiness of small game animals native to the Pacific Islands. It is robust and will overpower more delicate meats. For our first Jerk experience, we chose the flavorful and slightly gamy pheasant.

Despite its exotic flavor, it is easier to make than you might think. Most of the spices you need are things you probably have on hand. The primary flavors are allspice and hot peppers. My counterpart started with this as the base, along witth cinnamon and salt. He also used smaller quantities of cumin, oregano, clove, and sugar. And, because he was planning on a slow smoke over the course of an afternoon, he mixed up a sweet and tangy marinade of white vinegar and corn syrup.

He bisected the pheasant along the spine and breast bone and rubbed the skin side. He then placed it skin side up on the grill over glowing charcoal and green wood to cook at a low temperature for about six hours, brushing on the marinade every so often.

The bird cooked through. The meat was tender and the skin even crisped. It hit all my favorite flavor points - salty and spicy from the rub, tangy and sweet from the marinade, fatty from the crisped skin, and a little bitter from the smoke. I ate all the skin and licked the fat off my fingers. The allspice and smoke worked well with the gaminess of the pheasant. Even with all those strong flavors, the bird retained its own unique character and was the right choice for this application.

We paired our bird with a couple of boiled potatoes that were also placed on the grill for a bit. Sauteed in olive oil with some leek and fresh herb, they came out slightly sweet in that nice vegetably way that was a good counterpoint to the Jerk. Together they made the perfect summer meal.

Jerked pheasant with herbed potato and leek

Mary Cooks: Poussin with Pomegranate Sauce

Someone once said that a man's reach should exceed his grasp. This was me in the kitchen tonight. With my counterpart away on business for a second week, I thought about what it was I really wanted to eat for dinner tonight. As we still have a surplus of small game bird from D'Artagnan, I decided that one little poussin wouldn't go missing and rolled up my sleeves to actually cook something.

Everything I need for perfect dinner

I knew I wanted to pair the bird with potato but was not sure how to proceed. A quick search of epicurious revealed a recipe of poussin with potato rosti. And, even though this recipe was created by a professional chef (Chef Einat Admony), tonight I felt I was up to the task.

The recipe as written serves 8. I cut it back for a single bird.

Preheat the oven to 375.

For the sauce you will need equal parts sugar and pomegranate juice. It must be real pomegranate juice, too, not cranberry or cherry juice with pomegranate flavoring, so check the label. For 8 birds, use 1 cup of each. For my single bird, I used 1/4 cup of each.

Whisk them together in a sauce pan over medium heat. Once they reach a boil, cook for about another 10 minutes or so until they form a syrup. Set aside and prepare your birds.

Pomegranate syrup

Cut out the necks if necessary, clean, and blot dry. Mix together:

2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/8 tsp crumbled saffron threads

Sprinkle birds with spice mixture and work it in so that it sticks.

Sunny spice mix

In the pan you will use for roasting, heat about 2 Tbsp vegetable oil. I used coconut oil. Sear the birds until week browned, about 5 minutes per side. Work in batches if you need to. I did not as I only had the one bird. When all birds have been seared, remove the pan from heat and place all the birds in it. Pour the pomegranate syrup over them. And have a good sturdy scraper handy. While I was preparing my bird, my syrup cooled considerably and was quite thick and sticky by the time I was ready for it.

Pan-searing the bird

You will roast your birds for a total of 30 minutes, basting them with the pan juices every so often. About halfway through the roasting time, scatter 3/4 cup roasted walnuts into the pan.

Yeah, I said walnuts. Which is sure to get me into trouble. I don't like nuts. I dislike them so much that my counterpart is under a nut prohibition in the kitchen, which he laments regularly. In fact, I almost left them out. But, I felt that if I did, I would somehow be disrespecting the chef who created this recipe. So in they went. And, this does mean that the nut prohibition is officially over.

The birds are done when the thigh meat is about 170 and the juices run clear.

Almost there.....

While the birds are in the oven, you can make the rosti. Peel and coarsely grate 4 russet potatoes and mix them with:

1 Tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper

Potatoes with rosemary, salt, and pepper

Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil in a heavy non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add enough of the potato mixture to form an even layer that nearly fills the pan. You may have to do this in a couple of batches, depending on the size of your pan. Let it cook for about 10 minutes until the underside is nicely browned. Then, flip it. When you do this, you will get a most pleasant noseful of rosemary. Enjoy.

Rosti, A side

The recipe offers a suggestion on how to do this: Place a large plate over your skillet and flip it over to get the rosti onto the plate. Add a little more oil to the pan and slide the rosti back in to cook the other side for another 5 minutes or so.

Rosti, B side

So, once everything was done cooking, I was aware of the fact that I had actually created a really nice dinner. For the first time in my life, I produced a meal that required proper plating and a respectful presentation. I asked myself what my counterpart would do and figured something out.

How do I plate this?

The game meat was tender and delectable with a bright, sunny flavor from the spices and the pomegranate. The syrup mixed with the pan drippings to create a sauce that was thick and flavorful with just a touch of sweetness. While the controversial walnuts added to this flavor, they did not work well as a side and were discarded. The rosti, however, was crispy potato perfection and went well with the bird. As this meal was very light on veg, in the future I will add grated zucchini and carrot to the rosti to round things out.

Plated up and ready to eat

Forcemeat Quiche, or What to Do with Your Leftover Gizzards

According to Le Gastronomique, forcemeat is "a seasoned mixture of raw and cooked ingredients, chopped or minced (ground)... Forcemeats are the basis for several pates, meat pies, terrines, and ballottines..." etc. etc. Faced with a Sunday all to himself while I was working a software deployment, my counterpart found inspiration in the concept of forcemeat and decided to prepare a quiche.

The cooked part of the forcemeat was a bit of leftover rabbit from Saturday's dinner. For the raw portion, he dipped into a bag of assorted gizzards and other organs we have in the freezer. These little packets of innards found inside the carcass of most poultry and small game are good to save for future uses such as this. They are a little Chef's Treat, and you never know when they will come in handy to accent sauces and stocks, for an impromptu pate, or for a little meat pie like this.

The meats were minced with some leek to the point of a coarse rustic pate. A traditional quiche crust and egg mixture were also prepared. The forcemeat was added to the prebaked crust with thin slices of a strong French cheese and gently covered with the egg and baked until a lovely golden brown.

While I missed the preparation of this delectable dish, I did get to enjoy a slice after my long Sunday in the office. Gareth's quiche crust continued to melt in my mouth and was actually even better for the prebaking. The forcemeat and the cheese worked well together to create a hearty, slightly musky filling that was tempered by the egg just slightly. It was a fragrant piece of sunshine after a rough and tumble day.

Forcemeat quiche

Rabbit Dinner After Hurricane Sandy, and the Secret to Perfect Squash

We survived Superstorm Sandy, and (even with the power outage) so did all our frozen meat. This is not as surprising as it sounds when you remember that what made Sandy a superstorm was the unlikely combination of a hurricane and a cold front. Which means (at least in my area) once the center of the storm blew through, the temperature dropped. By the time the lights went out, it was in the low 40's - not much warmer than the inside of the fridge. It dropped just below freezing that night and stayed in the 40's the following day. Nothing went bad, and all the frozen food stayed frozen.

The power came back quickly, but the cold that Sandy brought in her wake has lingered. Tonight we decided that we needed a nice hot meal and pulled one of our rabbits out to defrost.

Rabbit, leek, and a very nice Chardonnay with a warm fire in the background

Rabbit is very lean and has almost no fat. Because it is always cooked without the skin (unlike poultry) it readily absorbs the fat you cook it in. So that's where my counterpart started with tonight's rabbit. He lightly seasoned it with salt, pepper, sage, and paprika  He then braised it in a fragrant mixture of butter, lamb fat, and olive oil  until the outside was a golden brown. He covered it with chopped leeks and a very nice Chardonnay and placed it in a 400 degree oven to roast.

Lightly seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, and paprika

Braised in lots of tasty fats

Smothered in leek and wine

While the rabbit roasted he started on the sauce, deciding on something aromatic and slightly bitter. As usual he had a pot of chicken stock simmering on the stovetop. He ladeled off some of the stock into a separate saucepan and added more leek and wine, plus a generous amount of bay leaves and brought it up to a boil. He then made a simple roux of goat butter and flour. Once it had smoothed out, he added the bay leaf and wine spiked stock. He also drained some of the cooking fat out of the rabbit pot and added that to the sauce. And, of course he added lots and lots of cream.

He then sauteed whole small button mushrooms in butter, cooking them just until tender. He then added them to the sauce where their moisture was released, adding an earthy dimension to it.

Aromatic, earthy, creamy goodness

And, while all this was going on, he still managed to get a spaghetti squash in the oven.

Now, I have long been a squash hater. It invariably comes out a sweet, spicy, mushy mess. And, while I do love some spice, it almost never tastes right in a squash dish unless you are talking pumpkin pie. And maybe that is part of the problem. Just because you're cooking squash doesn't mean you should try to make it taste like pumpkin pie. It's not pumpkin pie. It's squash.

So, here is the secret to perfect spaghetti squash, and maybe all squash:

1. Cut it in half lengthwise.
2. Place both haves on a cookie sheet with the innards facing up.
3. Bake in a 350 degree oven.
4. Remove form oven about 10 minutes sooner than everyone else does.

This is approximately how Gareth cooked the squash tonight, and it was perfect. The threads of the spaghetti squash were tender but still had some of that vegetably snap. And the squash wasn't trying to taste like something is wasn't. He didn't season it. With anything. And it was delicious.

The entire meal was delicious. The rabbit was served atop the mushroom sauce with a crown of spaghetti squash ribbons. The slightly pungent sauce complemented the light, mild rabbit meat and delicate squash. While so many others in the hurricane's path are still struggling to get clean drinking water and a warm, dry place to sleep, I am grateful for tonight's meal and for the care that went into it. 

A hot meal received with much gratitude

What to Do With a Dozen Guinea Fowl Legs

When I purchased the Game Bird Fun Pack from D'Artagnan, I was so excited that I failed to notice an important detail regarding the 5 lbs of guinea fowl. At the time of purchase, I thought I was getting a 5 lb bird. What I actually got was a 5 lb bag of legs. My counterpart looked at them and said "What the hell am I supposed to do with that?"

A dozen guinea fowl legs

He figured out what to do with squab, and soon he had a plan for all those legs - quiche.

He used the pastry recipe in Le Gastronomique and prepared enough for two quiches - one for dinner tonight, and the second for quick assembly sometime around mid-week. We determined that four legs would equal one quiche. With a dozen legs, eight were prepped for cooking, and four were carefully wrapped and put back in the freezer for future use.

To prepare our legs for the quiche, my counterpart decided to roast them the way you would roast any other fowl. He seasoned them with salt, pepper, sage, and leek. He also added potato to the roasting pan so that all of our filling components could cook together.

Seasoned legs and potatoes

The legs roasted in about 45 minutes at 350. Once they cooled, the meat was removed from the bones. Meat and potato were then cut down and mixed with more fresh leek and placed in the pastry shell.

Roasted legs

Preparing the pastry shell

Filling the pastry shell

The rest of the quiche filling was fairly standard. Gareth added that to a mixture of eggs and heavy cream, seasoned with salt, pepper, and herbs, and poured it into the pastry. He topped it off with grated cheese. Our cheese was a Jarlsberg we acquired at Wegman's and had initially intended for the squab but which actually works out very well in quiche.

The main ingredient

Cheese please

Into the oven it went, and about 45 minutes later it was done. Once out of the oven, we let it stand for about 10 minutes to allow the egg to set and the quiche to cool a little.

The finished product

For those unfamiliar with guinea fowl, it is a distant descendant of an African chicken. Like a wide variety of small bird, its popularity in Europe did not carry over to The Colonies, and modern America does not know what it is missing. Or, we actually do if only we could remember. Guinea fowl does taste a lot like chicken, but not like the bland and tasteless chicken you find in the grocery store. It tastes like chicken out in the country tastes, chicken that has been allowed to roam around and eat something besides corn. It's still chicken, but more so, with a stronger flavor and leaner meat. Its flavor brought back some distant memories from childhood, when I was not eating guinea fowl, but most likely eating a fresh chicken from the farm.

Squab: You Never Know Until You Try It

Honestly, one of the best parts of my life is being able to share it with someone who punctuates it with really good food. Because I live with a cook, I can actually get away with doing things like spending the weekly grocery budget on a medley of game birds ordered off the internet. What we got for our $100 (including shipping) was:

• 1 pheasant
• 4 quail
• 1 guinea hen
• 2 squab

Here I have to give a shout out to the folks at D'Artagnan for taking the required care in packaging their game meats and birds. When you order form their website, you can select your delivery date to ensure you are actually at home to receive it. Plus, it all comes vacuum-sealed and these awesome styrofoam boxes filled with ice packs. So even though they are driving down from New Jersey, everything is well-protected for the journey and arrives safe and sound.

When my counterpart asked me to take out some of that bird for dinner this weekend, I grabbed the squab.

For those who do not already know, squab is a variety of pigeon. It's a little smaller than a Cornish game hen, but not nearly as popular. Neither one of us had ever tasted it before tonight  Yet, I feel I can make such a purchase and trust that he will know what to do with it.

For some guidance in how to prepare this little delicacy, he referred to Le Gastronomique. Even Larousse was a little vague on squab, but recommended cooking it on a pan and serving it with peas.

What Le Gastronomique has to say about squab

He decided to stuff our squab with a mixture of spelt and leek and sear it on the stovetop in lamb fat and butter. Stuffing such a small bird is a little tricky. He did not make a stuffing like you would for a larger bird like a turkey. Rather, he filled their tiny cavities with the individual components: chopped leek, cooked spelt, a pat of butter, and a little toasted bread. Because our birds were partially deboned, he was able to fold the skin up over the opening to keep everything together.

Squab stuffed with spelt and leek

Stuffed and ready to cook

Cooking on the stove top in a little fat

And, because we're really grooving on it this fall, he paired the birds with a pumpkin sauce made from pureed roasted pumpkin, heavy cream, butter, and a little Korean chili sauce. He served it on a bed of asparagus and peas.

Roasted pumpkin

Pumpkin sauce in progress

The finished product

Asparagus

Flying birds are very different from roosting fowl. Pigeon is dark and irony like a duck but not nearly as fatty. The slightly sweet peas and rich pumpkin complemented the strong meaty flavor of the bird without subduing the nice gaminess that always makes me feel like I'm actually eating food. A good pumpkin sauce is actually very versatile, and Gareth's sauce was so good that it tasted really nice on everything, even the asparagus. The spelt provided a chewy backbone to the very lean pigeon meat. Overall, I was completely satisfied and could't have asked for a better first experience with this very tasty little bird.

Squab with pumpkin sauce on a bed of asparagus with peas and spelt

It was only after dinner that Gareth let me know he thought this was all a ploy on my part to make rabbit seem more normal. While it was not what I had been thinking at the time of the purchase, if it works out that way, so much the better.