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European Pheasant
Split young birds down the back, brush with fat, cover breasts with bacon, and grill. Such large birds are best done in a double steak broiler which holds them wide open until done; otherwise, they must be trussed open with skewers, or have firm and sharply pointed sticks thrust through them.
If they are old stuff them with apple and celery stuffing and bake, or jug them; or stew them and make them into a pie covered with short biscuit dough.
A spatchcock-and-grill method for young pheasant, with three fallbacks for old birds. The whole thing turns on judging the bird's age, since a mature pheasant grilled this way will be inedibly tough.
- Young or oldA young bird has a pliable breastbone tip, soft feet and a pointed outer flight feather; an old one is rigid at the keel with a rounded, worn outer primary. Reared birds sold by game dealers and supermarkets are usually first-season birds, so the grill method will often be the applicable one.
- Splitting down the backCut along the backbone with shears (many cooks take the bone out entirely) and press the bird flat so it cooks evenly. The recipe's 'holds them wide open' refers to the double steak broiler; failing that, it calls for skewers, which can be pushed crosswise through thighs and wings to keep the bird flat.
- The bacon is structuralPheasant breast carries almost no fat and dries out fast. Lay the bacon over the breast for most of the cooking and pull it off for the last few minutes to let the skin colour, or the breast will steam under it.
- Heat and timeThe recipe specifies neither heat nor time. As a modern guide, grill over medium coals or a moderate broiler, skin side away from the fiercest heat at first; a flattened bird of about 2 to 2.5 lb will take roughly 25 to 35 minutes. Cook to 165F throughout, thigh joints included.
- "Jug them"Jugging means sealing the jointed bird in a covered pot or stoneware jar with stock and herbs, often with port, and cooking it slowly in a water bath or low oven; the classic versions (hare above all) finish with the animal's blood. Today it is done as a covered braise in a low oven for two to three hours; the recipe itself gives no temperature.
- Short biscuit doughThe pie topping is a rolled baking-powder biscuit dough rather than pastry. The recipe gives no oven temperature; a hot oven suits it, so that the crust sets and browns while the already-cooked filling only needs heating through.
- ShotWild birds carry shot pellets and the bruised, bloodshot flesh around them. Feel the breast over before cooking and cut out damaged patches; guests should still be warned.
- YieldOne pheasant serves two generously, or three at a stretch when it goes into a pie.
"European pheasant" in an American book of this kind means Phasianus colchicus; in some sources the term distinguishes the black-necked European race from the Chinese ring-neck, though the two interbreed freely in American stock. An Asian bird long naturalised in Europe, it was introduced successfully to the United States in the late nineteenth century and took hold across the grain-farming Midwest, where it became one of the most popular upland game birds. Its abundance may be why the book treats it so briskly: this is a bird a hunter can come home with by the brace. The advice to sort young birds from old is among the oldest rules in game cookery and the reason the same species appears in cookbooks both grilled in half an hour and jugged for three hours. Jugging is an English survival, generally traced to the seventeenth century and most associated with hare, in which a tightly sealed vessel set in simmering water does what a slow oven does now.