As a teenager in the East, I often spent fall afternoons hunting pheasant in Western Connecticut with some considerable success. The problem was that the only way of cooking pheasant was dictated by Betty Crocker, I imagine, which said to roast a la chicken. The result was totally tasty, but completely dried out. Coming to the West, I joined the High Desert Hunt Club on the massive Tejon Ranch lands to shoot pheasant, Chuckar Partridge and quail. I then started experimenting with various recipes and settled on this one which retains all the moisture and flavors, and adds the richness of shallots, wine and Pernod.

The recipe works equally well for partridge, or other smaller upland game birds.

Ready

• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 3 slices salt pork
• 2 medium pheasants, split in half
• 1 tsp sage, ground
• 1 tsp, herbs de Provence
• 5 shallots, sliced thin
• 2 Tbs clarified butter
• ½ cup Madeira wine
• ½ cup chicken broth
• ¼c sour cream
• 1 tsp Dundee marmalade
• 3 juniper berries, ground
• 1 tsp Pernot
• salt and pepper to taste

Set

• large Dutch oven
• serving platter
• frying pan or skillet
• plate or bowl

Go

1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
2. In the Dutch oven fry the salt pork in the vegetable oil for five minutes.
3. Dust pheasants with sage and herbs and fry in oil until brown. Set aside on a serving platter
4. Discard the salt pork.
5. In a frying pan cook shallots in butter over a medium low heat until clear but not brown.
6. Stir in Madeira, marmalade and juniper berries. Pour mixture into Dutch oven and scrape up meat residue and stir.
7. Return pheasants to Dutch oven and add salt and pepper to taste.
8. Cover and bake at 375°F for 1 hour, checking every twenty minutes and adding chicken broth to keep sauce from drying out.
9. Remove pheasants and mushrooms to a serving platter.
10. Pour off excess fat, stir in cream and Pernot and add chicken broth as necessary to make gravy.
11. Pour gravy over pheasants and serve with wild rice and braised fennel.

What you should know

If you don’t have clarified butter add a touch of olive oil to regular butter as this will help keep it from burning.

This dish serves 4 and takes about 1 ½ hours to prepare. Wild rice takes about as long. You may want to start that first.