15 Flavorful Pheasant Recipes - Beautiful Dawn Designs (2024)

FAQs

Which cooking method is best for pheasant? ›

To ensure lean pheasants remain perfectly plump and moist during cooking, many restaurants cook pheasant with the sous vide method. This involves vacuum-sealing pheasant breasts or portions in a bag and cooking them at a precise low temperature in a water bath.

I personally like a little bit of the natural flavor, so I only soak for 12 hours before cooking. Leave as much of the skin on the meat as possible: Pheasants typically have very little fat on them, especially around the breast meat, so they can dry out quickly during cooking.

Brown the pheasant all over in hot dripping then put in a casserole dish with onions, carrot & celery. Add chicken or game stock, put the lid on and braise in a medium oven for at least 2 hours. Cooked like that it will never be dry but it will be tender, moist and flavoursome.

Return the pheasant to the oven and roast uncovered for 30 to 45 minutes. You want the internal temperature of the thigh meat to be about 155°F to 160°F and for the bird's juices to run pretty clear. A little pink in the juice — and in the bird — is what you want.

While pheasant meat is versatile, it has less fat than other meat, so care must be taken during the cooking process to ensure that the meat stays moist, otherwise it will dry out and overcook quickly. Pheasant can be prepared in many ways, but roasting and grilling are the most popular cooking methods.

Marinades, buttermilk, tomatoes, peppers, etc. all naturally contain acids. When grilling or roasting thighs, soaking them in your favorite marinade for a few hours beforehand is a great way to both tenderize the exterior and imbue with flavor.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a frying pan, add the meat and brown on all sides. Transfer to a casserole dish, add vegetables and stock of your choice, cover and cook for 50-60 minutes in the centre of the oven. Cook thoroughly until the juices run clear when pierced with a fork and there is no pink meat.

Roberts said prior to cooking the bird, the gamey taste can be pulled out by soaking it in milk and the blood can also be extracted. "I normally soak them (pheasant) overnight in a salt water ... it pulls the blood out," Roberts said.

To test when the pheasants are cooked pierce the thigh with a fine skewer, the juices should run clear. Allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving. Serve with game chips (or use good quality crisps), bread sauce and a gravy made with the onion flavoured juices.

Do not be alarmed if the thigh meat is pink. As long as the internal temperature is at least 154° and the meat is not translucent, the thighs will be perfectly safe to eat and much tastier than if overcooked! Farm-raised or wild pheasant can be treated more as a red meat rather than a white meat in the kitchen.

Why is my pheasant dry? ›

Another reason pheasant gets dry is a lack of fat, Hill said. Wild pheasant doesn't have the fat content a farm-raised chicken or turkey would, so it's important that the cook not cut back on fat. He recommends butter or olive oil, which add flavor.

Try wrapping in a coat of bacon or smearing with lashings of butter. For perfect pairings, think of other fruit and vegetables that are in season now, such as chestnut mash, sticky honey-roast parsnips, spiky apple chutneys or celeriac purée.

You can-a eat it raw” he says, squeezing the deep red pheasant meat between his fingers and bringing it up to his mouth.

Generally speaking you can serve pheasant a little pink, but not as rare as you can duck. This is more a textural thing than a safety thing though, I believe. Pheasant is quite lean so cooking it completely makes it very dry.

Remove pheasant from skillet and set aside. Cook game meat thoroughly to an internal temperature of 165°F. Using the same skillet, melt butter over medium heat.

Because farm-raised game birds are usually young and tender, they can be roasted, sautéed, grilled, and barbecued. The most important thing to remember about them is they are usually very lean. Therefore, they are best served slightly rare. If cooked to well done, they become dry.

Wild game always should be cooked thoroughly to an internal temperature of at least 165 F. The juices should run clear and no pinkness should remain. Young birds have lighter legs, soft breastbones and flexible beaks. Old birds have darker, hard-skinned legs, brittle breastbones and inflexible beaks.

To cook a young grouse, sear the back and each side until the breast is golden brown. Then, return the grouse to its back and roast for around 12 minutes at approximately 220 degrees Celsius. Once cooked, rest for around 10 minutes before serving.

Lightly salt and pepper and cook to no more than medium-rare.