Ingredients
2 lb pheasant hen, cleaned (up to 2 1/2, lb)
1 onion, quartered
1 bay leaf
6 peppercorns
1 small carrot, sliced
1 celery stalk, sliced
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp butter
1 pinch thyme, powdered
1/4 tsp rosemary, dried and crumbled
1/4 cup mushrooms, chopped
2 tbsp flour
2 tbsp black walnut meats, finely chopped
Directions
COOK BIRDS: Split pheasant down the breastbone (or have your butcher
do this). Rinse the halves, place in a deep pot and barely cover
with water. Add bay leaf, onion, carrot, celery, salt and peppercorns.
Bring to rolling boil, then turn down heat and simmer for
approximately 30 minutes, or until tender. Remove foam and scum as
it forms. Remove bird(s) from broth, reserving the broth.
Using a heavy skillet, saute the halves in about 2 T of the butter
until golden. Place birds into small roasting pan or casserole with
just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle with thyme
and rosemary. Bake, lightly covered with foil, for 30-40 minutes at
350 degrees F.
MAKE GRAVY: While the birds are in the oven, strain the broth and
boil rapidly down to about 2 cups.
Brown the mushrooms using the same skillet in which you browned the
pheasant. Remove the mushrooms and keep them warm.
Melt the remaining 2 T of butter in the skillet. Add the flour,
stirring up the browning from the pan. Cook over moderately high heat
until golden brown. Blend in the broth using a wire whisk.
Add mushrooms and continue cooking approximately 1-2 minutes. Turn
down heat, cover and keep warm until pheasant is roasted.
When the pheasants are cooked, remove them from the oven and scrape
the herbs from the skin. After placing the pheasant halves on a warm
platter (or leaving them in the casserole), pour the gravy over the
pheasant. Garnish with the chopped nutmeats and serve. This dish is
particularly good with wild rice.
NOTES:
* Pheasant in the North American tradition -- This recipe is adapted
from the exceptionally good, controlled-circulation Recipes Only
Magazine. The original dish was created by Mary Richard for use in
her Teepee Restaurant, in Winnipeg. I found some of the ingredients
hard to locate in a hurry and used what I had available with good
results. You can substitute rock Cornish hen, guinea fowl, or chicken
for the pheasant and hazelnuts, filberts or walnuts for the black
walnuts.
: Difficulty: easy once you have the all the ingredients ready.
: Time: 40 minutes preparation, 80 minutes cooking.
: Precision: measure the spices.
: G. Roderick Singleton
: Syntronics Manufacturing Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
: gerry@syntron.uucp utzoo!syntron!gerry
: Copyright (C) 1986 USENET Community Trust
Servings: 2 servings
Pheasant Amerind Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Pheasant; Poultry; Wild Game
The History of Recipes
Transcribed cooking instructions as an idea can be observed far back into history, in truth as far back into history as the early Egyptians, and possibly even further than that. Interesting though that is, in the main part, these ancient cook books were just basic pictorial, hieroglyphic or cunieform instructions for preparing meals.
Fascinatingly, the most ancient recipe discovered, according to academics are some clay tablets in the Sumerian language describing the preparation of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making those who drank it feel wonderful and blissful. As we move into The time of the roman empire around 25BC a roman called Apicius wrote a number of documents which described recipes enjoyed by wealthy roman citizens. In his works, he describes how the meals of wealthy Romans were divided into appetizers, main course and afters, a style of dining still practiced today. Aspicius tells us how the Romans used a good variety of spices, including many that are still in use today like bay, rue and dill. In the 15th century, people returning from the crusades brought back many new foods, spices and herbs from the holy lands, such as rosemary and coriander. These new foods and tastes led to an increase in manuscripts on cooking, many of which are now in academic collections. Over the following few centuries, the powerful and rich houses tried to serve the most exotic banquets, and consequentially cooks and their recipe collections were much in demand. However, it was during the nineteenth century that cooking and recipe collections rose to prominence. The Famous Mrs Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Merritt Farmer in the US, devoted their lives to collecting, testing, and recording recipes to allow everyone to enjoy them. The arrival of TV gave us celebrity chefs and the accompanying recipe books. And that brings us to the present day and the invention of computers and the internet, permitting everyone to access thousands of recipes such as those found on this web site. |
We hope you enjoy this Pheasant Amerind recipe.
