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Christmas Dinner... thinking of Pheasant?

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  • 08-12-2012 6:23pm
    #1
    Dara Robinson
    Registered Users Posts: 1,055 ✭✭✭


    So yea, we were looking at Christmas Dinner and we wanted a good feed so we ended up looking at free range turkeys and so on. OMG how expensive is it, I mean I know its probably value for money with all the work, time and effort that goes in but :eek::eek::eek::eek:

    But actually the clincher for us was that the smallest turkey I could get my hands on was HUGE. There is only 2 of us so we just ended up deciding to leave it. And we were talking and thinking about alternatives when Pheasant came up. I spoke to my local butcher and he is able to get a couple of freshly killed ones, clean and hang them for us and have them ready for Christmas day which is great :) (oh and its only going to cost us about €20 all in, which was nice)

    Now the new dilemma, I have never cooked Pheasant, let alone for Christmas Dinner. So I have been looking up a few recipes when the question popped into my head, do I do ham with the Pheasant? A lot of the recipes for Pheasant advise bacon and while I know thats cause its a bit of a dry bird, still though, got me thinking. Why not?

    So, any thoughts? Any examples of Pheasant as Christmas Dinner with ham and Pheasant served in the traditional method like turkey is normally?
    Tagged:


Comments

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    #2
    Kat1170
    Registered Users Posts: 3,621 ✭✭✭Kat1170


    Plenty of ideas here >>>>>>


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    #3
    rubadub
    Registered Users Posts: 32,381 ✭✭✭✭rubadub


    Dara Robinson wrote: »
    But actually the clincher for us was that the smallest turkey I could get my hands on was HUGE.
    You could get a turkey crown, or possibly even a half crown. Its weird the way people get such big turkeys knowing there will be stupid amounts of leftovers, and for some reason they expect there is some christmas miracle that keeps bacteria at bay and so many will eat turkey far after its cook date compared to say chicken.

    We got a turkey crown one year, for 5-6 people, I much preferred it, overcautious cooks also do not have to cook it to complete dryness like so many do with full turkeys.


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    #4
    the beer revolu
    Registered Users Posts: 17,005 ✭✭✭✭the beer revolu


    I'd be careful of doing pheasant if you haven't cooked it before - it can be very dry if overcooked.
    Also you really need to cook the legs separately as they take much longer to cook than the breast. Typically with roast whole pheasant, you get nice moist breast meat but stringy under cooked legs or nicely cooked legs and dry breast meat.
    The way to overcome this is to cook them separately ie. roast the crown but confit or slow roast the legs.
    Or you can casserole pheasant with good results but I'm guessing you want a roast for christmas.

    If you do decide to go with pheasant, I see no reason not to have ham with it.

    Goose is lovely but also very expensive.


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