Pheasant Confit: Delicious Juicy Goodness

I imagine that if you took one of your ancient relatives (just a couple hundred years back) and brought them to the present day, and then showed them the inside of your refrigerator, they’d probably scratch their head in bewilderment.

“Why?” you would ask them.  They would point to the bottles of pickles and jellies, cured sausages and maybe that package of bacon, and then turn to you and ask, in the same tone, “Why?”

A lot of the stuff we cook with (and don’t necessarily think about) has a specific reason for being the way it is. That reason almost always boils down to preservation, or namely the lack of a proper method. – at least before the advent of refrigeration, and that’s really a rather recent accomplishment.

This week we cover pheasant confit (not the usual duck or goose). Confit is one of those old-school methods of preserving food, and it’s unique in that it really uses two methods. The first is brining, which is a method of increasing the amount of salt in a product, thereby making it less hospitable for bacteria. The second part of a confit is the storage – in the fat it was cooked in. The procedure originated in France, and like a lot of other unique foods, was originally designed to dramatically increase the shelf life of a product.

We’ve grown so accustomed to these items as staples that we continue to practice the same techniques developed hundreds of years ago, but now simply for the development of their flavors. That great flavor of a ruben, with the smoked meat and sauerkraut, is almost entirely thanks to old preservation techniques.

So enjoy your confit, and take a moment to thank those old French chaps for not having a fridge of their own.

-Chef Savage

Pheasant Confit

6ea         Pheasant Legs
16c       Rendered Duck Fat

Brine
2ea       Oranges (cut into 8 pieces)
2ea       Lemons (cut into 8 pieces)
½ c       Kosher Salt
½ c       Sugar
1c       Orange Juice
10       Garlic Cloves
2       Bay Leaves
1oz       Fresh Thyme
1oz       Fresh Rosemary
1oz         Fresh Parsley
6       Black Peppercorns
1gal       Water


Procedure
Place all ingredients for brine in an 8qt sauce pan and bring to a simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove from flame and cool. Once brine is cool, pour into a 2 gallon container and place legs into the brine and let set for 12 hours covered in the refrigerator. If running short on time you do not have to simmer the brine as we demonstrated.
Pour brine through a colander and discard liquid. Place pheasant legs in a roasting pan and cover with some of the remaining mixture from the colander. Melt the fat and pour over the duck.
Place pan in a 250 degree oven for 4to6 hours or until the meat falls of the bones. Start with 4 hours and check in 30 minute increments. Cool and store in duck fat. (You may leave it in the fridge for several weeks; just make sure the legs are covered completely in fat)

The Beauty of Butchery

Something that occurs naturally to chefs  (and probably doesn’t often cross the mind of everyone else) is butchery. Maybe not going so far as to render down a live animal into the beautiful little prepackaged segments you’d find in your local grocer’s meat department, but slicing up a whole chicken or a side of a beef is a surety.

The wonderful thing about this (the big secret, if you will) is that you can actually save a good bit of money doing this. It’s not really hard to do - all you need is a nice knife (the sharper the better!) and the will to learn. Practice makes perfect, of course, and if you’re able to devote a bit more time, you too can get in on the secret.

Whenever I’m cooking up some chicken at home, be it soup, sautéed chicken breasts or something as fancy as the Duxelle Stuffed Pheasant Breast (well, I guess I’d be cooking pheasant then, but… whatever), I just grab whole chickens and cut them up into the pieces I need. Then I can have choice – I could do full breasts, split ones, cook off the tenderloins for whatever, and maybe stuff the legs into a jambonette. That, and you get that wonderful carcass that you can toss into a pot with a few pieces of celery, carrot and onion and c’est voila! You’ve got your own, delicious, homemade chicken stock. Use it with that chicken meat you just cut up and you’ve got the best damn chicken soup ever.

That’s not even beginning to talk about what you can save by buying full loins or strips of beef from a Costco or Sam’s – learn how to trim and cut ‘em up, and you can do a big ol’ steak barbecue on the cheap. All in all, butchery is one of those things that can bring you a lot of joy, if you just devote some time to learning it.

 - Chef Savage

 Roasted Breast of Pheasant

Stuffed with Mushroom Duxelle with Raspberry Demi

Yield:  6 portions

Ingredients:

3 each whole Pheasants

Raspberry Demi-Glace:

2 tablespoons shallots (diced)                          

1/2 cup fresh raspberries                                  

2 tablespoons raspberries preserves     

1 cup demi-glace

Salt, pepper and sugar to taste

**********

Method:

Demi-Glace:  Place shallots, raspberries, preserves and wine in a saucepot and reduce by half.  Add the demi-glace and reduce again by half.  Adjust the seasonings to taste.

Stuffing & Cooking:  Trim the extra fat off of the breast and butterfly with a boning knife (the half of the breast that is opposite the wing bone).  Place about 4 ozs. of the duxelle on the breast, skin side down.  Roll the breast around the stuffing; try to seal the stuffing in.  Place the stuffed breast, crease side down, on a roasting pan and bake in a 400° oven, with the wing pointing upward, for approximately 10 minutes.

To Serve:  Cut in slices about 1/4" thick and serve in a fan with the sauce on the bottom.