Pheasant braised in Red Wine with Mushrooms and Baby Onions
Pheasant Braised in Red Wine with Mushrooms and Baby Onions
Serves 8
This is a Guest Recipe from the Mail on Sunday You Magazine
It is just delicious and the flavour is intense and fabulous.
Extraordinary to think how just a few simple ingredients can create such a marvel of taste sensation!
Ingredients
110g / 4oz rindless lean bacon, diced
55g / 2oz clarified butter
8 baby onions, peeled (I just use an entire pack of small pickling onions, which gives you more!)
12 button mushrooms (if there are more in the punnet, just use them all)
2 pheasants jointed into 4 pieces
290ml / half a pint red wine
Chicken or pheasant stock (you can make the pheasant stock from boiling up the carcass)
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 bouquet garni
Salt and black pepper
20g / three quarters of an ounce of plain flour
To Garnish
A handful of fresh chopped parsley
AND THIS IS WHAT YOU DO....
- Drop the bacon into a pan of boiling water for 30 seconds. Drain and dry well.
- Put half the butter in a large, heavy saucepan and slowly brown the bacon. Remove and reserve the bacon.
- Add the onions, shaking the pan to brown them evenly all over.
- Add the mushroom (do not bother to peel them unless the skins are very tough). Fry fast for a further 2 minutes, then lift out the fried vegetables. Do not wash out the pan.
- Add the remaining butter to the juices in the pan and brown the pheasant joints. Tip off any fat.
- Return the vegetables and bacon pieces to the pan and add the wine and enough stock to nearly cover all the pheasant pieces.
- Add the garlic and bouquet garni, and season.
- With a wooden spoon move the pheasant pieces about and stir the sauce until comes to the boil. Stir well to loosen any sediment. Cover with a well-fitting lid and simmer slowly until the onion and pheasant are tender (about 45 minutes).
- Remove the bouquet garni. Lift out all the solid ingredients and put them on to a warmed serving dish. Keep warm while you make the sauce.
- Skim all the fat from the cooking liquid, putting 1 tablespoon of fat into a cup. Measure the liquid and make it up to half pint or 290ml with more stock. If there is more than this amount, reduce it by boiling rapidly.
- Mix the flour with the fat in the cup, stir well and add a little of the hot cooking liquid to this paste. Return the mixture to the pan and bring gradually to the boil, sitrring continuously. Simmer for two minutes until the sauce is smooth and shiny. Taste and season.
- Trim all the pheasant pieces, arrange in a warmed deep serving platter and spoon the sauce over the pheasant. Sprinkle the parsley on top and serve.