Pheasant Recipes

Pheasant recipes are a wonderful white-meat fowl to add to your dinner table. In America, pheasant recipes are not enjoyed often enough. Recipes to prepare pheasant at home, such as traditional pheasant recipes and wild pheasant recipes, are definitely a boon to game hunters.

Pheasant is a somewhat gamey bird by the standards of the average American palate. It is helpful to know a few recipes to prepare pheasant that still preserve the innate qualities of the pheasant.

Pheasant Preparation

Ingredients

• 1 pheasant
• 1/2 cup coarse sea salt
• 1/4 cup garlic powder.

Directions

1. Place the bird in a large bowl or pan, filling the container to cover the pheasant completely with water.
2. Add sea salt and garlic powder.
3. Cover tightly and place in the fridge for a full day.
4. Drain the bird and pat dry before using in one of the following recipes below.

Roast Pheasant

Ingredients

• 1 prepared pheasant (see above)
• 4 Tbsp garlic powder
• 1 Tbsp celery powder
• 1 Tbsp onion powder
• 1 tsp red chili pepper
• 1 tsp sage
• fresh ground pepper.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350?F. Make a dry rub for the bird with a combination of all the ingredients listed above.
2. Rub the bird all over with the mixture. Place the bird in a roasting pan. You can add any of the following to the pan: one large chopped onion, one large carrot sliced lengthwise, two stalks of celery sliced lengthwise or 10 medium red potatoes.
3. Fill the roasting pan with 1/2 inch water. Cover the pan with foil, arranged in a tented manner, so the foil is securely wrapped around the edges of the pan but puffed up and over the pheasant to create a tent. This will help keep the moisture in.
4. Cook a 3-pound bird for 1 1/2 hours, and a 5-pound bird closer to 2 or 2 1/2 hours. Check a meat thermometer, which should read about 140?F when done. The joints should also be loose and pliant.
5. Enjoy the bird with corn, stuffing, potatoes and a smooth gravy made from pan drippings on the side.

Elegant Pheasant Casserole

You can also use pheasant breasts to create an easy pheasant casserole, perfect for making ahead of time or freezing when you have fresh pheasant on hand. This is a modern, easy take on one of the more traditional pheasant recipes.

Ingredients

• 4 pheasant breasts
• 4 slices prosciutto
• 4 slices gruyere cheese
• 1 packet prepared Knorr''s bearnaise sauce mixed with extra cup of water
• Mrs. Cubbison''s cornbread stuffing
• 2 Tbsp butter.

Directions

1. Combine the breasts, prosciutto, gruyere cheese and bearnaise sauce in a small, greased glass casserole dish, layering them in that order.
2. Top with a layer of Mrs. Cubbison''s cornbread stuffing. Cut the butter into coarse cubes and place on top.
3. Bake at 350^oF for an hour, serve with mashed potatoes and dinner rolls.

You can also style this dish more like a pot pie or shepherd''s pie, laying phyllo dough over the bottom of the greased pan and adding half a bag of frozen mixed vegetables and/or trading out the stuffing topping for mashed potatoes.

Resources

BackwoodsBound.com (2005). Pheasant casserole. Retrieved November 13, 2006 from the Backwoods Bound Web site: http://www.backwoodsbound.com/zpheas5.html.

Orvis (2006). Dinner with the king: Pheasant. Retrieved November 13, 2006 from the Orvis Web site: http://www.orvis.com/detail.asp''subject=176&index=9&
dir_id=1034&cat_id=&group_id=&bhcp=1.

Thies, David (2006). Garlic pheasant. Retrieved November 13, 2006 from the Argus Leader Web site: http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20060721/PCOUNTRY0501/60722006/1149/PCOUNTRY05.