In the Peak District for a spot of walking and today encountered a most aggressive pheasant!
Two ladies walking in the opposite direction warned me about the bird as I entered a field through a stile. The bird immediately latched on to me as soon as I entered the field and followed me flying at me and behaving in an aggressive manner. It refused to clear off despite a lot of shouting and hand waving and continued to follow me across a further 3 fields and only gave up when I reached a lane.
Normally think of pheasants as timid and stupid. Very odd
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I think I would have tried to grab it by the neck to see how clever it felt then. Insolent, feathered, dinner-in-waiting.
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>> Normally think of pheasants as timid and stupid. Very odd
Cock Pheasants? Nah stupid aggressive things. One tried to head-but my car, it lost but not before it took out a fog light.
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They are muscular birds, very tough. Got sharp spurs on their legs too like cockerels. If you grabbed one by the neck you might get gouged a bit before you could kill it.
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>>In the Peak District for a spot of walking and today encountered a most aggressive peasant!
Normally think of peasants as timid and stupid. Very odd <<
Am I the only one who mis(speed)read the post?
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Aggressive Peasant ? In the context of the Peak District, that would be Benny Rothman then?
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The Springer gave an aggressive pheasant a seeing to on a run in the forestry a couple of months ago....no match for years of hunter killer breeding, superb turn of speed and mouth/eye coordination designed for the sport. Take on a Spaniel at the top of its game and pay the price. Not that I encourage that sort of behaviour....all rather embarrassing it was.
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I feed a nye of pheasants in my back garden. Every morning, 8am, I walk to my lawn and shake a tupperware dish filled with seed. If 3 or 4 aren't already waiting they soon appear out of the bushes. I have a particular soft spot for one with a bad limp. I call her 'Cassidy'. The cock birds then appear, but the hens approach to within 12" and I reckon that this winter, wearing gloves, I can get them to feed out of my hand. The most I have seen at any one time is a dozen. And they bring their young...earlier this year they were so small I initially took them for sparrows.
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Used to go walking on a Suffolk estate where pheasants were bred I suppose for shooting. A couple of old-fashioned gamekeepers' larders there too, everything from jays and carrion crows down through foxes and weasels to magpies going green like the corpses of traitors and pirates... we used to find these big nests full of pheasant eggs, and later cute little chicks, all over the place.
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Not sure Benny Rothman would have seen himself as a peasant - more of a militant socialist really.
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Not any rude words, but you try singing it without accidental and naughty spoonerisms!
www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mentor01/song.htm
:o)
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Thanks SP, I've never known the full version, only the very abbreviated.
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Always found pheasant over-rated to eat. A friend of the family brought two around (dead) on Friday evening, both ready for the oven. I invited my friend over for dinner and roasted it but as usual I found it dry and all the time you are worrying about if you are going to crack your tooth on the shot. She said it was nice but I think she was being polite, I would much rather have an outdoor reared chicken.
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I was told early on that pheasants should be roasted with a lot of streaky bacon rashers draped over them, and with slices of toast under them. That way dryness isn't such a problem.
I haven't shot a pheasant for years having lost my taste for murder, and on the whole I don't like the smell of rotting poultry meat so always preferred to cook them more or less fresh. I don't care if people say the meat is tenderer and tastier when the thing has been well hung. Gaminess doesn't appeal to me at all. Too squeamish.
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Ah that's interesting, I put bacon on the top but never heard of the the toast. We have the second pheasant to try sometime so I will remember that trick.
It wasn't a great meal, infact one of the highlights was some parsnips my friend brough round. I'm not a great fan of parsnips since I've only had them boiled, they seem a bit dull and bland to me.However she said to cut them into strips and roast them in the oven with some oil and they came out lovely, crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside. Just like chips really but out of parsnip rather than potato. I will certainly copy that idea again, although they did give me quite bad wind.
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Pheasant goes well with Plum sauce...... my old local pub which I frequented for nearly thirty years ( unfortunately now closed ) used to do this dish regularly and it was yummy.......
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In an attempt to catch up on the C4P romance, I stuck MJW1994 into the author box, and "she" into the message box in search.
N.B. If you get pheasants in feather, then you have the delight of the liver and heart. Save them when you gut the bird, and fry them quickly in butter and pop them on a morsel of toast ((home-made) sourdough the best). Delicious canapés to go with your champagne.
Stick half an apple inside your pheasant - this will slow down the cooking a bit; as it cooks quite quickly it can go dry almost instantly. Then you have a choice.
1. Butter the breast, and then put rashers of streaky bacon over the top. If you can get some butter under the skin, all to the good.
2. Roast it upside down. i.e. with the breast at the bottom. This will keep the breast moist as the juices run down. Put some bacon over the top anyway.
Then, don't overcook it. It's quite difficult to cook just right. Undercooked and it's wet and watery; overcooked and it's dry. Might be worth investigating a meat thermometer (I never have).
And then make some proper gravy. Take the pheasant out of the roasting pan. There should be some brown bits in the bottom with the juices. (You can encourage more of this by roasting a quartered onion at the same time as your bird.) Stir in a dessertspoon of flour until it is smooth. Add a mug of water, slowly, mixing all the time so you don't get lumps. Add a handful of fresh herbs from the garden, some salt, pepper. Put it into a pyrex jug, and pop it into the microwave until it boils. Pour through sieve into gravy boat.
Re Lud's toast; that will absorb the juices that run out of the bird. Serve the carved bird on the slice of toast.
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Thanks, that' really useful info. The second pheasant I put in the freezer so I will give your method a try over Xmas.
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>> 2. Roast it upside down. i.e. with the breast at the bottom. This will keep
>> the breast moist as the juices run down. Put some bacon over the top anyway.
Advice that's good for other game/poultry as well including the Christmas turkey.
And MJW's friend is spot on. Parsnips (and for that matter carrots, beetroot, sweet potatoes and butternut squash) are delicious roasted rather then soggy/bland when boiled.
Beetroot still turns your wee/poo purple though.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 22 Nov 13 at 22:47
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Can't stand beetroot, about the only food that makes me want to be sick. We used to have that foul vinegared version at school but even the natural stuff smells odd, like an old Steinway piano. I have not tried it roasted though, although don't like the idea of what it might do to my bodiky functions.
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>> Can't stand beetroot, about the only food that makes me want to be sick. We
>> used to have that foul vinegared version at school but even the natural stuff smells
>> odd, like an old Steinway piano. I have not tried it roasted though, although don't
>> like the idea of what it might do to my bodiky functions.
It takes longer to roast than carrots/parsnips and some cooks par boil or even pressure cook but the concentration of sugars/flavours in the finished product is worth the wait.
Fact that the colour is not broken down in either intestine or blood>kidneys>urine is just a warning about colour of poo/wee. Not like jalapenos that taste good but have explosive effect in the colon.
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>> >> Can't stand beetroot, a
Ditto. Too many years of living in a house where they were boiled up for Sunday tea every week. Vomitous.
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but have explosive effect in the colon.
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you make it sound so appealling. Thinking about it I think the beetroot I've eaten is as veggy crisp.
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>>I like beetroot!
So do I, in fact I have it twice a week (and the beetroot) it's good for the blud.
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>> >>I like beetroot!
>> it's good for the blud.
Some say it's good for the blud pressure, too. Bottled beetroot juice is available in various supermarkets, if you like it that much.
Nice to see you back after your extended break, Dog.
www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/6127355/Is-beetroot-the-latest-superfood.html
Last edited by: Clk Sec on Sat 23 Nov 13 at 12:11
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Good health to you and yours CS, I was reading that very article this morning.
Have you ever tried Match tea? .. I bought some recently, even bought a little whisk to froth it up.
Very nice first thing in the morning (v/healthy too) but I wont be buying it again @ £20 for 20g.
Loads on eBay of course, including Jap organic, but who's to say it's not repackaged Chinese stuff :)
A. Cynic.
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>>Have you ever tried Match tea? .. I bought some recently, even bought a little whisk to froth it up.
Very nice first thing in the morning (v/healthy too) but I wont be buying it again @ £20 for 20g.<<
No, but I'll pass that one on to Mrs CS, as she likes to try different teas. She might baulk at that price, though.
Ta very much.
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I thought that I would give Mapmaker’s method a go since I have been promised two more pheasants for Christmas and also the freezer is getting a bit full since a friend of the family brought around quite a sizable bag of diced venison and not knowing what to do with it, I put it in the freezer for now. I’m thinking venison stew and dumplings over Christmas maybe :-)
Anyway I had an excuse to cook since my friend (or girl/lady friend now since things have moved on a bit….) was coming around for me to check the tyre pressures, coolant and water on her car before going to visit family in London. I don’t like her doing motorway trips without checking these things so I thought I may as well cook a proper dinner for her. The thought of her breaking down near Slough would be too much for me.
I followed the recipe although did not have an apple in the house but instead I used a pear which seemed to work well. The pheasant was certainly less dry that when I did it before, I would say that this is certainly a better method. I made proper bread sauce and gravy, roast potatoes, sprouts and baked parsnips.
It was a nice meal although I still think pheasant is over-rated. I would rather have a nice chicken or roast duck.
For pudding I made her favorite Bread and Butter pudding. If we go out for a meal she will always have it if it’s available. I’m neutral about it, we used to get it at school and it always seemed stodgy and dull to me. Anyway my grandparents gave me one of their old cookbooks three years ago when I started catering classes, it’s ancient dated 1968, Great Dishes of the World by Robert Carrier. It’s a lovely old book, something to treasure. In it there is a recipe that I though I would try out on her:
1oz currants
4 slices of bread
Butter
4 egg yolks
3 egg whites
4oz sugar
Nutmeg
1 pt. warm milk
½ teaspoon of vanilla essence
Butter an oven dish of suitable size. Scatter a few currants in the bottom of the dish. Trim the crusts off the bread and cut each slice in half. Butter each piece generously and place inlayers on the dish, scattering currants between each layer.
Twenty minutes before you are ready to bake the pudding, beat the egg yolks and whites together with the sugar and a little nutmeg. Stir in the warm milk and vanilla essence and pour over the slices bread and currants. Bake in a moderate oven (375F, Mark 4, top oven of Aga) for about 45 mins or until the pudding is set and lightly browned.
Anyway she wolfed down two helpings, there was some left for me and I’m more keen on it now than before but I’m not sure I would have it if I’m out for a meal. To me bread is something you have for breakfast.
Anyway she had a good feed and we spent the rest of the evening by the open fire discussing what we might cook for Christmas. Well some of the time anyway… ;-)
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> Anyway she had a good feed and we spent the rest of the evening by
>> the open fire discussing what we might cook for Christmas. Well some of the time
>> anyway… ;-)
>>
When's the wedding - Pat needs lots of time to buy a hat :-)
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>> When's the wedding - Pat needs lots of time to buy a hat :-)
It's true that when 1994's friend's dad suddenly turns up at his door with a shotgun, time will be pretty short.
I'm sure at a pinch Pat can improvise a winsome sort of Muslim headscarf out of a strip of clean tarpaulin though.
We're all running on the spot 1994.
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Seemed to trigger the swear thingy.
Last edited by: MJW1994 on Sun 1 Dec 13 at 21:25
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>> >> When's the wedding - Pat needs lots of time to buy a hat :-)
Steady, one step at a time! Still not sure why she's interested in me although she wrote a long letter detailing some of it. Also my Dad who I've not seen for weeks gave me a fairly stern talking to about being my usual worst enemy for faffing about. So a bit of being attacked on all sides....
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Got the perfect hat already!
A witch's hat complete with spiders ready for Mew Years Eve in Looe.
Purple and black corset and tutu though, complete with fishnet stockings, mean I'm hoping for mild weather.
If you're going to do something completely silly at my age then it needs to be done in style:)
The wig will ensure my anonymity!
Pat
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>> started catering classes, it’s ancient dated 1968, Great Dishes of the World by Robert Carrier.
>
OY!! I was 8 then and Roger considerably older!!
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I was 30, the age at which all men become blackguards.
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I was 33 then, so already a blackguard!
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>> Gaviscon
An aid to rapid ageing is it?
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>> my friend (or girl/lady friend now since things have moved on a bit….)
About bleeding time!
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>> >> my friend (or girl/lady friend now since things have moved on a bit….)
She only wants you for your Scenic.
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Oh, btw, MJW. Don't sweat the age gap. I was speaking to a friend this weekend whose parents have a 7 year age gap, the mother being the elder. They are now 80 and 87 years old, been together almost their entire adult lives.
Good luck with it.
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Ha ha. Well she appreciates quality and dependability in her possessions...
....and in her cars as well.
She makes a lovely cup of tea, perfect strength and balance of milk. Far better than my Mum's muck in a cup. These things are important :-)
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Aggressive pheasant - Alanovich
