15 Flavorful Pheasant Recipes - Beautiful Dawn Designs (2024)

FAQs

Which cooking method is best for pheasant? ›

While pheasant meat is versatile, it has less fat than other meat, so care must be taken during the cooking process to ensure that the meat stays moist, otherwise it will dry out and overcook quickly. Pheasant can be prepared in many ways, but roasting and grilling are the most popular cooking methods.

I personally like a little bit of the natural flavor, so I only soak for 12 hours before cooking. Leave as much of the skin on the meat as possible: Pheasants typically have very little fat on them, especially around the breast meat, so they can dry out quickly during cooking.

Brown the pheasant all over in hot dripping then put in a casserole dish with onions, carrot & celery. Add chicken or game stock, put the lid on and braise in a medium oven for at least 2 hours. Cooked like that it will never be dry but it will be tender, moist and flavoursome.

Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add pheasant legs and thighs and season with salt, pepper, oregano, and paprika. Cook until golden brown and no longer pink inside (roughly 8 minutes per side).

Roberts said prior to cooking the bird, the gamey taste can be pulled out by soaking it in milk and the blood can also be extracted. "I normally soak them (pheasant) overnight in a salt water ... it pulls the blood out," Roberts said.

Brining -- the process of soaking meat in a saltwater solution -- provides a good deal of protection against the undesirable effects of overcooking.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a frying pan, add the meat and brown on all sides. Transfer to a casserole dish, add vegetables and stock of your choice, cover and cook for 50-60 minutes in the centre of the oven. Cook thoroughly until the juices run clear when pierced with a fork and there is no pink meat.

To test when the pheasants are cooked pierce the thigh with a fine skewer, the juices should run clear. Allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving. Serve with game chips (or use good quality crisps), bread sauce and a gravy made with the onion flavoured juices.

Do not be alarmed if the thigh meat is pink. As long as the internal temperature is at least 154° and the meat is not translucent, the thighs will be perfectly safe to eat and much tastier than if overcooked! Farm-raised or wild pheasant can be treated more as a red meat rather than a white meat in the kitchen.

When grilling or roasting thighs, soaking them in your favorite marinade for a few hours beforehand is a great way to both tenderize the exterior and imbue with flavor. Should you wish to fry your legs, letting them sit in buttermilk a couple hours beforehand will also tenderize the exterior.

How to tell if pheasant meat is bad? ›

How do you tell if pheasant is bad? A spoiled pheasant will depict several distinct changes. You might notice a change in the color from a rosy hue to a dull gray. The bird may develop a slimy or sticky coating.

Another reason pheasant gets dry is a lack of fat, Hill said. Wild pheasant doesn't have the fat content a farm-raised chicken or turkey would, so it's important that the cook not cut back on fat. He recommends butter or olive oil, which add flavor.

You can-a eat it raw” he says, squeezing the deep red pheasant meat between his fingers and bringing it up to his mouth.

Generally speaking you can serve pheasant a little pink, but not as rare as you can duck. This is more a textural thing than a safety thing though, I believe. Pheasant is quite lean so cooking it completely makes it very dry.

I actually prefer the flavor of a pheasant that's only been wiped clean with a damp cloth. I find that thorough rinsing and brining leaches flavor and makes a pheasant little more than a boring chicken. You'd think tossing the birds on a bag of ice in a cooler would be a good idea, right? It is and it isn't.

Because farm-raised game birds are usually young and tender, they can be roasted, sautéed, grilled, and barbecued. The most important thing to remember about them is they are usually very lean. Therefore, they are best served slightly rare. If cooked to well done, they become dry.

Lightly salt and pepper and cook to no more than medium-rare. Fun tip: Consider cracking fresh black pepper over the heart and fry in bacon grease. Neck: I rarely (if ever) save the neck on pheasants as very little meat exists here, but if you are persistent you can likely pick off some bits if you toss in a gravy.

“A lot of times people will overcook pheasant just because they are thinking the time and temp needs to be the same as chicken when it doesn't.” Many people use heat that's too high or cook pheasant too long, Hill said. A slow cooker is a great way to help avoid that trap. Another method: marination.

Hold the pheasant over an open gas flame to scorch off any remaining feathers. If you do not have a gas burner use a blowtorch, but don't get so close to the pheasant as to scorch the skin. Wipe over the pheasant with kitchen paper to remove the remains of any scorched feathers. The pheasant is now ready to cook.