RAINING SIDEWAYS: Normandy Pheasant

Normandy Pheasant

This, without doubt, is one of my favourite pheasant recipes and is ideal for oven ready birds which have been commercially prepared. Pheasant like beef is better if it has been properly hung. If it is not it is inclined to be dry and dull when roasted. Apples and Calvados prevent the meat becoming dry and compliment the flavour wonderfully.

Apple, Cabbage and Ginger Soup

Fresh, spicy and delicious this is a great way to use up a few windfalls and a bit of cabbage. But, a big but, it’s essential to have some good chicken stock to back up the flavour.

Shred half a large white cabbage and chop three onions and four green apples. Turn them over in melted butter, then put a lid on the pan and sweat for about ten minutes until soft but not, absolutely not, brown. Add a clove of garlic crushed with salt, a small piece of finely chopped fresh ginger and a litre of chicken stock (…made from that carcass you were going to throw away……) Simmer a few more minutes until the cabbage is tender. Then blend, reheat, taste, season and serve. Very quick, very nice!

Brown a brace of pheasants in melted butter in a heavy frying pan then set aside on a plate. Melt more butter in the pan and fry a kilo of peeled and chopped apples till golden. A sweet apple is best such as Cox or reinette.. Choose a casserole that will snugly take the two birds. Put them breast-side-down on a thick layer of the apple. Pack the remaining apples all round the pheasants. Pour on 125ml of crème fraiche. Cook gently for about an hour at gas 4 or 180c checking after forty minutes or so. After an hour take them from the oven, raise the heat to 8 or 230c and pour over more crème fraiche with 4 tablespoons of Calvados. Return to the oven for five minutes. Leave to rest before serving. As with all meat resting for a while will make it easier to carve.

Books

The Whitefaced Drift of Dartmoor’s Prapper Sheep: A Story as Olde as Them Hills, Colin Pearse
A history of the White Face Dartmoor sheep. Published by Short Run Press Ltd.
The Preserving Book, Oded Schwartz
My favourite store cupboard book. Published by Dorling Kingersley
Les Clafoutis de Christophe, Christophe Felder
A rustic dessert originating in the Limousin, clafoutis is prepared with black cherries on which one pours a rather thick pancake batter. Christophe Felder, one of the best French pastrycooks, describes some 80 variations on clafoutis, sweet and savoury. Clafoutis with bilberries and fennel-flower, clafoutis with wild strawberries, clafoutis with broccoli and Gruyere....
Particular Delights, Nathalie Hambro
"This book is about the art of eating, a rather wider notion than the art of cooking. Whereas cooking can merely be a mechanical execution of the instructions in a cookery book, eating invloves the use of all the senses. Life can be enhanced by the sensual elements in our surroundings. Forgotten memories are evoked by smell throughout life, and what can compare with the everyday smells of freshly roasted coffee and of bread as it is baked, or the delicate ratafia of plum or cherry jam as it cooks?"
Jane Grigson's Fruit Book
The Fruit Book and it's partner Vegetable Book were the last two books Jane Grigson wrote, and both won the Glenfiddich Writer of the Year Award. She was one of the leading cookery writers of her generation, and as well as her many books she wrote for the Observer Colour Magazine for more than 20 years.
A Modern Herbal, Maude Grieve
Mrs. Grieve's Modern Herbal, first published in 1931, is still in print, and you can also read it online at www.botanical.com.
Modern Cookery for Private Families, Eliza Acton
Unsuccessful as a poet, Eliza Acton found fame with her cookery books. Modern Cookery, first published in 1845, is one of the first cookery books written specifically for housewives.
The Cooking of South West France, Paula Wolfert
Confits and Cassoulets - the 'cuisine de terroir' of South West France. The recipes make use of ingredients which the region has in abundance, such as wild mushrooms, truffles, duck, walnuts, chestnuts, hams, cheeses and wines.
Food In England, Dorothy Hartley
Published in 1954, the best of all books on English Food. Dorothy Hartley described Food In England as being like "an old-fashioned kitchen, not impressive, but a warm and friendly place, where one can come in at any time and have a chat with the cook".

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Comments

Your son Tom recommended your site on Fictional Bloggers. It was well worth dropping in. Love the narrative and the recipes are a treat! I'll be sharing them with my wife (who is a better cook than me).

Kind regards

Alan Gidney.

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