Cookbook Lottery #5 - Gordon Ramsey's Pheasant and Ginger Casserole

A new role at work has severely limited my time over the last couple of months and writing the blog has been low on my list.  I do have a couple of sessions from last year to write about (the blog below plus a Christmas dessert created for our family). These will be first catch up blogs followed by Roast Duck in Cider which I am cooking tomorrow.

Sheila has been her usual self and filled up the diary, so over the next 4-5 weeks we are hosting 3 dinner events for friends and family.  First is an Indian evening, followed by a Pig Feast (nothing but pork dishes on the menu!) and lastly an Asian inspired evening.  I will write about these evenings too and let you all know how we got on.

So, Pheasant and Ginger Casserole then?

Sheila and I visited a farmer's market last week just because we had nothing better to do on a Sunday morning.  I had no plan at all to buy anything, yet left with a couple of bags full of pork belly, mallard duck, sausage, smoked cheese and pheasant.  All of this cost about £17... Well worth it!

So, after buying all this wonderful produce on a whim, I decided to add a new rule to the Cookbook Lottery challenge.  I can now go out and buy produce that I have never used before, then from within the cookbook list and recipes, I would choose a recipe to match the product.

So, the only recipe I could find in the cookbook collection was from Gordon Ramsey's Healthy Appetite.  On page 97, I found Pheasant and Ginger Casserole.  Sorry, Sheila, I know it's ginger and you hate it, but it's for the good of our foodie growth!

The only shop open at 5pm on a Sunday is the Co-op so I shot off there to buy a couple of ingredients I would need to complete the recipe.  This proved to be a bit of a struggle...  No fresh thyme or fresh ginger, no cloves and no star anise.

Time to get a little creative then.  Our Chinese 5 spice mix at home contains fennel, garlic, ginger, cloves and star anise so that covered the star anise and clove route, plus I was already putting garlic and ginger into the dish, so that was fine.  What could a little extra fennel do to anyone?  Fresh thyme became dried thyme and fresh ginger became lazy ginger (prepared in a jar!)

I rough chopped all the vegetables as instructed by the recipe, then rubbed a little salt and pepper into the skin of the bird.  

The pheasant was plonked breast side down into the casserole dish. I then added everything else to the dish, spreading it all evenly around the bird.

I was a little naughty and deviated slightly from the recipe here.  Instead of adding water, I added vegetable stock purely because I wanted more depth of flavour in the cooking liquid.

The casserole dish was put on the stove and the stock was brought to the boil.  Once boiling, the heat was turned down to the minimum and a lid was put onto the dish.  I then then set the timer for 20 minutes and moved into the lounge to have a beer with Sheila.

The "Beep Beep!" of the timer necessitated a quick excursion into the kitchen to turn the pheasant over and give the stock a bit of a stir.  Timer set again for 15 minutes, couch calling, beer waiting...  you know the drill. 
As usual, Sheila's timing is perfect and about 30 seconds after her comment, 'I'm hungry!' the timer beeped at us, Sheila grinned happily and we went into the kitchen to dish up.

I removed the pheasant from the stock and placed it onto a chopping board to portion. We were warned to expect shot in the bird, so I wasn't surprised during the portioning to remove two small metal balls from the breast meat.  I removed all the cooked flesh from carcass and discarded the skin and bones. 

The portions of pheasant were placed into a bowl, followed by ladles of cooked vegetables and lashings of the sauce.  It seriously smelt heavenly!

Serve with fresh bread and dinner is served!

Thoughts?

Ummm...  not sure really.  The sauce was amazing, the vegetables were soft and had loads of flavour and overall it was beautifully hearty and perfect for a winters evening.  I just loved dunking the bread and munching on the soggy, doughy, warm, gorgeously tasty goodness!

The question point is on the bird.  It was ok really. Slightly gamier taste than chicken, to be expected, but not the wow I was expecting.  Also, it was still a little tough.  Longer cooking time required?  The vegetables would not have held there shape much longer in the stock so I reckon it must have been that this particular bird was a little tough one, building wiry strong muscles by constantly running around his little habitat or pheasant is naturally a tougher meat..  

Mmm... Maybe I just expected too much from a little humble bird that runs around in the grasslands.  Might try a roast next time, see if there is any difference to our experience.