I've been given a couple of pheasants (a male & a female), and want to cook them in the slo-cooker to keep them tender.
Can anyone give me some good recipe suggestions? I've got a couple but don't really like them.

Am hoping to retain much of their natural taste, so nothing that'll end overpowering the meat's flavour, please. 🙂

Not looking forward to prepping them mind, not done it before!

the natural flavour of pheasant is very strong and quite an acquired taste.

nearly all recipes will have big bold flavours to compliment this.

Skin em, wrap them in bacon, lashings of butter, stuff with home made sage and onion wrap in foil and roast for about 45 mins. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

OK, explains why the one i've got used cider & some other stuff that I thought would just mask it!
I reckon we'll do one at a time to experiment.

I tend to use the below, or a variant of.

2 pheasants (about 650g-700g each), plucked and gutted
Salt and pepper
500g red cabbage
2 apples
2 sprigs of thyme
Butter
Olive oil
125g unsmoked streaky bacon
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
2 plump cloves garlic, chopped
8 juniper berries, crushed
1 strip of orange peel
1 bay leaf
180ml red wine
3 heaped tbsp redcurrant jelly
2 tbsp redwine vinegar

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Season the pheasants inside and out. Remove the hard core from the cabbage and thinly shred the leaves. Peel and core the apples. Slice one apple thinly and add to the cabbage; put half the other apple inside each pheasant, along with a sprig of thyme.

On the hob, heat a knob of butter and a glug of oil in a casserole dish large enough to hold both pheasants, with a couple of inches to spare above them. Brown the birds well on all sides, one at a time. Remove the pheasants from the casserole dish and put to one side.

Reserve 2 rashers of bacon, then chop the rest into strips and add to the fat. Cook for a few minutes until the bacon starts to brown, add the onions, garlic, juniper, orange peel and bay leaf, then sweat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally until the onion is soft. Add the cabbage and apple, then cook for 20 minutes, stirring every few minutes to stop it burning. Mix in the wine and redcurrant jelly, season and bring to a simmer. Place the pheasants, breast side down, on top of the cabbage, cover and cook in the oven for 40 minutes.

Now remove the lid and stir the vinegar into the cabbage. Turn the pheasants breast side up. Cut the remaining bacon into 3 or 4 pieces, spread them a little by bashing with your fist, then drape over the pheasant breasts. Return the dish to the oven, without the lid, for 20 minutes. The pheasants are done when the legs pull away easily from the carcass. Hoick the birds out at the table and carve.

Mashed spuds or celeriac are good for sopping up the juices – as are your normal Christmas trimmings, particularly the bread sauce and roasties.

i'd do that, the roasting method above is great but you'll have to be very careful with cooking time and that only really comes with experience. if it goes dry then the bin is too good for it.

personally i prefer to use pheasant in terrines and pates as the flavour can vary massively unless you can guarantee the lineage/age of the bird.

or you could try and make Yorkshire Pot!

Ohh yeah I've had a really nice pheasant terrine, good idea.

Great timing… just picked up a Pheasant last night (from a shop, not the side of the road)

I intended to roast in in oven covered with bacon. And was hoping to use the leftovers for a terrine I'm making for the weekend.

I've never eaten or cooked pheasant. Is the cooknig that critical? If it's over cooked does it go all dry? Is it worth jointing it and cooking it like rabbit?

it goes dryer than Ghandi's sandals if you get it wrong which is why pot roasting or casseroles are more popular

get it right and it can be lovely though

'specially if you've taken it from field to pot on your own as it were

MrMW is spot on there. Pot roasting or casserole is my choice. A rally simple way is to simply brown the outside of the birds, then chuck in a casserole, cover with a bottle of cheap, full bodied cooking red, chopped onion, garlic, bay leaf or two and some black pepper.

Once the birds are done, thicken up the sauce to make a lovely rich gravy, and then serve with some mashed spuds.

Oh, and why is it that they taste so much better when you've bagged them yourself? 🙂

(Slight edit re wine, MrMW is right, don't go really cheap, but no need to spend too much)

if you are going to use a bottle of plonk on it then use a decent rounded red wine not a cheap table wine. i'm not talking one of CFH's Sommelier's selection but something with plenty of ripe berry flavours. A really sharp red wine with strong tanins will bring out the bitter flavours of the meat, especially the legs.

ive forgotten what self bagged pheasant tastes like, not shot one since i was a 16 year old sniper with my air rifle

will inherit the family shotgun later in life and get out on some shoots though, shouldn't be too hard as one of the barrels has no choke to facilitate the use of elephant shot 😆

The pub I go in has a couple of country types and they swore blind last night that they always microwave pheasants for 14 minutes. They might not go brown on the outside, but they keep moist. So they said.

I'm going to do that with my next one (which I get given if they've had a prosperous morning – i.e. they didn't get caught)

Joint em
Pan fry in butter with shallots and garlic
add a litre of fresh pressed apple juice
simmer till reduced to about a 1/3
take out pheasant
thicken sauce with cream
pour over pheasant joints and serve with apple slices lightly sauted in butter

Last time I did it I took the wings and legs off to make a stock (usual stock extras needed). Then I poached the rest of the bird in the stock with some smoked bacon, carrots, leek, herbs etc. Serve with a bit of mash, job done. Either eat the rest of the stock as a soup.

picked up a Pheasant last night (from a shop, not the side of the road)

Nowt wrong with side of the road so long as they're fresh and cleanly killed (not squished). There are pheasants raised near where mum lives – in cold winter weather they often stagger out onto the road, I've picked up fresh 'uns two or three times. Hang them for a few days, sorted. 😉

road kill is fine, especially if you've hit it yourself so you know it's fresh (i don't advocate aiming for them though)

round here the pheasants all hang out on the roads when there's a shoot on with a smug 'can't shoot me here' look on there faces 🙂

My old man once picked up a whole deer he saw a bus hit.

mmmmmmm free venison (HOMER)

IMO it's just not worth the effort of plucking and drawing a pheasant for the amount of meat on it.

Stick it on it's back and remove a few feathers so you can see the breastbone. Sharp knife to cut the skin then pull right back to reveal the breasts – use said knife to remove breasts. Bend leg back to break hip joint and remove the meat from the thigh (I do a bit more but difficult to describe). Throw rest of pheasant in bin – you now have 90% of the edible meat.

Use the meat in any recipe that normally uses chicken or lamb. Perfect for currying, also good in casserole, etc

I vote pot roasting: never done this for a Pheasant but works a treat on beef joints and lamb shoulder…

This is off the cuff but rub with olive oil and season with salt and pepper, stick it in the biggest, heaviest lidded, deepest pan you can find, stick it in the oven on high for 15 mins to brown the outside.

While that's doing, brown bacon, 2 coarsely chopped onions, two roughly crushed (not pressed) garlic cloves, massive handful of mushrooms, celery and a couple of up carrots.

Get the Pheasant out, chuck all of the above in. Bring a litre of chicken stock and half a bottle of red wine up to the boil and pour over. Add boiling water if neded until completely submereged.

Give it 2 hours at 170C with the lid on.

Hook it out and leave to rest for 15 mins and it'll be so tender it'll barely support it's own weight.

Make a roux and slowly ladle and stir the juice from the pan in to make an amazing gravey!

as per red wine casserole but add sliced spicy sausage (chorizo, polish etc) and cook slowly – yum!

Cooking Pheasants, I had to read that a few times 😀

do what CaptainMainwaring described to get the best out of them without plucking them, then pan fry as Dales_rider suggests.

organic355 – Member

Cooking Pheasants, I had to read that a few times

[Snobby W*nker Mode]
Uggh imagine how grotty they would taste, all fattened up on KFC and Rustlers microwave food, it would be worse than eating a town pigeon.[/Snobby W*nker Mode]