Vegetarians look away now.

There is a good amount of meat on the skinned cock pheasants. (Please note my pheasant plucker's pinny, a gift from my friend Sally!) I've looked in my recipe books to decide how to cook them.

 

 

 

I bought Mrs Beaton's book as an Easter present for my parents. After retirement my father became an enthusiastic cook . He behaved like a surgeon in an operating theatre. The rest of us, wife, daughter and grand-daughters scurried back and forth to the pantry, the sink, the knife cupboard to provide everything he needed for his recipes. But the results were worth it. Even the vegetarian  sighs nostalgically  at the memory of Grandad's game pie!

The book has an inscription that fixes the date of the gift.  The phone numbers of the local game dealers have been written on the flyleaf and there is a meat price list from the wild boar breeders and an invoice for venison steaks.

Recipe books are wonderful things, they are history books really.

The pilaf recipe is a light and tasty recipe and a good one for avoiding any shot. (Never bite hard on a pheasant casserole unless you want to damage a tooth!)

 

Louise Walker's book is one of my favourite and most often used books. The recipes are foolproof and very tasty. This is the recipe I'll be using today. Pheasant can be rather dry so I sometimes put an apple in the body cavity while it is cooking.