Chris-NZ Posted July 20, 2009 Report Share Posted July 20, 2009 Picking the brains of all you experienced fellas. Had a play last night with cooking two wild pheasants but it didn't turn out well. I know they're very prone to drying out while cooking so went to some lengths to stop this. Made up a butter-rich stuffing and put some of this plus a stuffed quail inside each one, rubbed the pheasant with olive oil, then fully covered it with streaky bacon. Into a big oven bag and added about 1/2cup of chardonnay to further keep the moisture up. Into a medium oven for 2hrs and left to rest for 20mins. It turned out quite tasty but rather dry. Suggestions for next time? I'm thinking of jointed in a casserole. Chris-NZ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JC275 Posted July 20, 2009 Report Share Posted July 20, 2009 Easy one this Chris, cut the cooking time down to about 30-40 mins. I eat loads of pheasant breasts. My favourite recipe involves taking a nice bottle of wine, drinking it all during the preparation and eating phases of the operation and on no account using it in the cooking. Cut the breast almost in half from the side, stuff it with a piece of venison fillet (good way to use muntjac fillets as they are so small) add some sun dried tomatoes, drizzle on a small ammount of olive oil, season with salt, pepper, paprika (I use paprika a lot with game and venison) and mixed herbs. Wrap in good quality British bacon (not the Danish rubbish), tie with string in a couple of places, lightly oil and season the outside again then wrap in tin foil and cook in a hot oven for 30-40 mins. Don't be tempted to open the tin foil half way though to look at it, leave well alone. I sometimes do a similar thing with a cheese stuffing. The biggest mistake with any game or venison is to overcook it. Best wishes, JC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejg223 Posted July 20, 2009 Report Share Posted July 20, 2009 That sounds good JC, I also think one needs to cook em quick. I just remove the breasts, marinate 2 hours in garlic/mustard/honey/tiny bit of tabasco sauce. Wrap in bacon secure with party stick and preheat pan until olive oil starts smoking. Fry all round till almost black and then put in the max preheated oven for another 10 minutes. Result is very moist tender breast. Also works with duck breasts. edi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sauer Posted July 20, 2009 Report Share Posted July 20, 2009 shooting times had a "gamealonni" dish and sounds easy n great!!1 pheasant breats finely diced garlic onion olive oil sundried tomato paste dried basil sherry spinach parmesan or cheddar whatever lasagne pasta sheets milk butter plain flour dried mustard finely dice pheasnat breast and same to garlic & onion, then fry with the pheasant insplah of olive oil, add teaspoon of tomato pasteand dreid basil, when cooked add dash o sherry and the spinach once spinach is wilted add 1.5oz o parmesan or cheddar mix and remove form the heat partly cook pasta sheets in boiling water drain and transfer to bowl of cold water ( stops sticking) and leave till you need em ( 2mins for fresh pasta or 6 mins for packet or dried stuff ...refer to packet) heat half a pint of cold milk 1oz of butter 1oz of plain flour and half teaspoon o mustard powder in a pan, bring to boil stirring all the time as sauce thickens add a 1.5 oz of your cheese ( parmesan or cheddar) and mix well and remove form heat leave to cool. grease oven proof dish with olive oil lay out sheet o lasgne pasta sheet place spoon o game/ pheasant mixture on top roll it up and place in the dish seam-side down. repeat process for all mix and pasta sheets pour the cheese/milk /flour sauce mix over the pasta tubes and cook in oven at 180 degrees celsuis untill browned mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm sauer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris-NZ Posted July 20, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2009 Well those three will keep me busy for a while. Made a nice discovery yesterday- was in yapping to the lads in the local gunshop and mentioned it. They said half my problem was the birds. They can get me unlimited grain-fed pheasants from local driven shoots. Merv tells me there were 236 birds shot the day before on one of the game farms he helps on, and the vast majority were not claimed. "How many do you want?" he asked. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1967spud Posted July 20, 2009 Report Share Posted July 20, 2009 Well those three will keep me busy for a while. Made a nice discovery yesterday- was in yapping to the lads in the local gunshop and mentioned it. They said half my problem was the birds. They can get me unlimited grain-fed pheasants from local driven shoots. Merv tells me there were 236 birds shot the day before on one of the game farms he helps on, and the vast majority were not claimed. "How many do you want?" he asked. Chris they will literally shagged out mate and not suitable for eating Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elwood Posted July 20, 2009 Report Share Posted July 20, 2009 If you want to roast them and not let the meat dry, roast them in a chicken brick, google it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris-NZ Posted July 21, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 they will literally shagged out mate and not suitable for eating What, run to death as it were? From what the lads tell me, they're def good eating and have been near over-fed with grain. We'll try them and see- can't say the experiment is gonna cost much Chris-NZ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JC275 Posted July 21, 2009 Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 Spud, don't forget that the seasons are reversed for Chris down in NZ. I guess they are in the middle of the shooting season rather than the rearing season like us. Chris, give us a bit of a summary of the game shooting situation down there, I bet plenty of people would find it interesting. I use something similar to a chicken brick if I have to roast any birds but I don't use it much, another tip is to roast them breast down for most of the cooking time then turn them over for the last few minutes. I firmly believe that any recipe that uses chicken breasts or diced chicken can be done as well if not better with pheasant breast. JC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1967spud Posted July 21, 2009 Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 yea sorry chris i forgot you come from the upside down land, i spose our shooting season is your rearing season vice versa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris-NZ Posted July 21, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 yea sorry chris i forgot you come from the upside down land, i spose our shooting season is your rearing season vice versa You're now onta it Spud I'm only a social game bird shooter JC but have mates who are fanatical. Our duck season always starts on the first Sat of May, and some of the boys count down the sleeps (and beers) til it arrives. Duck blinds or hides are called maimais here (a Maori word) and I get dragged in to help refurbish the main one each year. My Opening Day spot is a large dam on my mate Mike's old family farm. All the siblings get together from various parts of NZ for this and I'm now an honorary one. We stay in the old shearer's quarters and have a 4 course pig-out the night before. Up at 4.30am for a large brekkie then out to the dam. Mike and I shoot on a floating stand in the middle and the others have various maimais round it. I bring along my Lucky Duck (another brand of RoboDuck) and we've found it makes a huge difference on the opening morning. They soon wise up though after a week or two.. My other mate Tim has his own huge maimai on another lake, in fact it's about the size of a small cottage. His business' carpenter was once diverted to attend to some "off site maintenance".. I tend to do the Sunday after Opening Morning there and about 3 other session during the duck season. This year, there was a higher proportion of mallards compared to Paradise ducks which made everyone happy. We had a nice clean-up about a month ago on a windy wet Sunday afternoon. The lake hadn't been shot for a few weeks and there were heaps of them coming in from even 4pm. It's dark about 5.15pm that time of year so plenty of action. Dunno about the UK but they've brought in compulsory steel shot for waterfowl unless you're more than 200m away from any water. The stuff DEF doesn't kill as well as lead. This year, the duck season was shorter than usual, finishing at the end of June. I assume the census showed numbers were down from last year so they set the bag limits and season length accordingly. Pheasants and quail go through to the end of Aug. We have heaps of Cal quail hanging about the margins of our lifestyle block and I give these the occasional rev-up. Am able to go for a wander in the neighbour's farm which has plenty of cover for them (read scrub). We occasionally have a flock of 15-25 walking about our lawn and driveway, and I have to resist the temptation to blast them as it doesn't impress my wife. Did tip a pheasant over once while home for lunch- he was under the olive trees pigging out and crouched down with the car passing within 10 feet of him. As for big game, we're pretty spoilt here. It is permanent open season on nearly everything, the big exception being wapiti in Fiordland. We are free to head out any weekend and chase deer, pigs or wild goats. My main deer place is a run-off owned by one of my farmer patients and (touch wood) I've never missed getting one yet. They are all reds but there are plenty of sika not far from here. My farmer's main farm (which his boys now run) has a good number of reds on it and also an increasing number of fallow. One of his neighbours had a play at breeding trophy fallow and charging guys to shoot them, but he got tired of it and the animals have managed to escape and are building up. He took me on a dusk shoot a while ago and we saw over 20 animals in an hour or so. I had to wait for three fallow to move away while I was stalking a red hind just on dark, and we saw at least 5 in the light on the way back. Could have easily shot three with a .22, they were that close. Varminting is usually a mixture of magpies and rabbits/hares though we get the odd crow thrown in for variety. There are heaps of goats round Hawkes Bay and in fact one of our cats lives on a diet of prime young goats and venison offcuts if he's lucky. His fluffy mate prefers rabbits or hares. The rabbit numbers are building up again after being decimated by RCD. My .223 VS became near redundant overnight but it's getting more use now fortunately. Maggies are good targets for the 6.5x47 and I have a patient who's a farm manager 30mins drive from here where there are heaps of them to shoot at. We can roam over three adjacent large farms so you can always find something to shoot at including large flocks of turkeys on occasion. Between this and fishing, I haven't got a lot of spare time Chris-NZ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
menial 1 Posted July 21, 2009 Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 I pull the breasts out, start the George Foreman up, a bit of oil and seasoning and 5mins later have a couple of nicely cooked breasts that haven't dried out and still retain most of their flavour. My days of plucking and stuffing are long gone, by February 1st we,ve handled that many from rearing to the game cart that sausage, egg and chips are more appealing. Pete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris-NZ Posted July 21, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 I pull the breasts out, start the George Foreman up, ... Good thinking Spencer! Hell, we have one of those which my wife occasionally uses for bacon so must gives that a go I can identify with breasting only. Did that with about 25 turkeys once and made a nice batch of turkey/ven saussies Thanks Pete Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elwood Posted July 21, 2009 Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 I pull the breasts out, start the George Foreman up, a bit of oil and seasoning and 5mins later have a couple of nicely cooked breasts that haven't dried out and still retain most of their flavour. My days of plucking and stuffing are long gone, by February 1st we,ve handled that many from rearing to the game cart that sausage, egg and chips are more appealing. Pete. Stunningly simple idea, many thanks for that. This year I will be mainly eating pheasant and partridge breasts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris-NZ Posted July 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 26, 2009 Some feedback: Tried Edi's recipe at home and it was a major improvement on my previous attempt. Far more moist. Will subject some friends to it shortly Chris-NZ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejg223 Posted July 26, 2009 Report Share Posted July 26, 2009 Some feedback: Tried Edi's recipe at home and it was a major improvement on my previous attempt. Far more moist. Will subject some friends to it shortly Chris-NZ Very good Chris, I love frying duck breasts that way too (minus bacon) and cutting in thin slices to put over a salad. cheers edi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1967spud Posted July 26, 2009 Report Share Posted July 26, 2009 Very good Chris, I love frying duck breasts that way too (minus bacon) and cutting in thin slices to put over a salad. cheers edi that sound really nice edi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruxie hill Posted July 27, 2009 Report Share Posted July 27, 2009 24 hrs in the slow cooker mate the only way i do it now fantastic keeps the taste but so moist yum any of you boys tied phessie burgers i`ve got a never ending supply over the winter all the best bruxie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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