Posted: Sat Jan 26, 19 9:46 pm Post subject: pheasant help please.
i have been given 4 huge pheasants , 4 days hung so far and doing b n b in the shed until tomorrow.
i will crown and leg em cos i cant be doing with fancy work on inedible bits
so 4 crowns 8 legs
one pheasant eater with a freezer , salt , dehydrator, pans etc
i was thinking pressed game terrine frozen in portions but i am very open to suggestions
imho stew is best with un hung and a bit bulky ( these birds would make stew for a small tribe ) so my usual plan seems less than ideal.
one brace are really huge, the boy is the biggest i have ever had , the other brace are just unusually big
any suggestions ?
Nick
Joined: 02 Nov 2004 Posts: 34535 Location: Hereford
Posted: Sun Jan 27, 19 11:30 am Post subject:
At this time of year they’re likely tough. So stew and slow cooking or marinade is the way forward. I thought I had little to suggest here but then found myself grilling pheasant thighs in teriyaki marinade (24h).
Then sliced and mixed with egg noodles and various sliced spring onions, peppers, garlic, chilli, coriander and celery. In the fridge for L to take for lunch during the week.
Seems to keep me out of trouble for a bit.
Shan
Joined: 13 Jan 2009 Posts: 9075 Location: South Wales
Posted: Sun Jan 27, 19 11:56 am Post subject:
I confit the legs, strip the meat off and make Pithiviers.
sean Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 42219 Location: North Devon
Posted: Sun Jan 27, 19 11:59 am Post subject:
Pheasant rillettes?
Nick
Joined: 02 Nov 2004 Posts: 34535 Location: Hereford
so far i have a bottle of old rosie as a marinade base for sweet n sour limbs slow cooked, glazed, shredded and portioned for later use.
i will see how much breast meat i end up with but at the mo im thinking a couple of kilos of cooked cubed meat in gravy would be compact and useful for assorted hearty dishes
cubed breast browned and cooking off in 2 litres of good chook stock
8 legs in s n s cider marinade
just a forensic observation that the shooters wont see.
filling them with corn for breakfast can lead to a rather close quarters battle and giving the guns 1/4 choked or open( at a guess ) loaded with 240 shot cartridges can get a bit messy especially as small shot going fast pulls feathers into the holes
one leg had 15 entry wounds below the knee , the rest of it looked like it stepped on an ied once it took off its clothes
it must have been close enough to club it with the butt
a couple of others had rather more holes than required
bigger lumps, more choke and a bit further away is good, with 80 shot 2 or 3 hits is plenty for a kind kill and a tidy time in the kitchen.
harder to hit em, easier to prep em
2 out of 4 were pretty ok and would roast if the diner was cautious, 2 needed searching for metal and feathers once in bits
rum n raisins is quiet , a happy farewell party and easy to prep
should be softish by the morning, old rosie and live cider vinegar is a rather robust marinade
not as catabolic as pineapple enzymes but mushy amino acid soup is but a forgetting away
Bebo
Joined: 21 May 2007 Posts: 12590 Location: East Sussex
Posted: Wed Jan 30, 19 9:09 pm Post subject:
I'm hearing that pheasant fajitas are popular with the game shots that I know.
5 or 6 shot, 28 or 32 grams and don't shoot 'em when they are on the end of your gun (unlike clays when 8 shot are good and turning them to powder is fun)
if i understand you are using numbers for sizes and i am using numbers for how many in the load
just to complicate things a decent load to use on phessies is one that can deliver several holes at fatal energy
as the terminal placements are a bit random overkill is a kind thought , i would favour bigger lumps and better aim from bit further away for kind death and easy kitchen prep.
overkill with each shot having enough energy to drop it for the dogs even if it only gets hit by one shot somewhere is not my style but it is better than less thoughtful options.
ex fil used fairly chunky shot, a rather bangy load and a very nice purdey. his birds had 2 to 5 holes and almost never had shot, feathers or shattered bones for cook to deal with.
Bebo
Joined: 21 May 2007 Posts: 12590 Location: East Sussex
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 19 10:26 pm Post subject:
Yup. 8 shot is 2.2mm and you get 450 of them to every 28 gram cartridge. 5 shot is 2.8mm and you get 220 of them per 28 gram cartridge.
For clays you want lots of pellets as clays are fairly small and can be missed by gaps in the pattern. Live quarry you want something big enough to get through the feathers and kill, rather than wounding.
my weapon of choice for phessies is a car bumper, usually a clean head shot and often little more than a few bruises to the meaty bits.
the tidiest shot birds i have come across were dick's ducks. he loaded for geese when wildfowling so one or two large holes right through was the usual end for donald. tidy as a .22 rifle
Shan
Joined: 13 Jan 2009 Posts: 9075 Location: South Wales
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 19 2:43 pm Post subject:
We have the pheasant shoot shooting across our fields today. They're bloody useless. I watched one chap miss 5 birds.
Bebo
Joined: 21 May 2007 Posts: 12590 Location: East Sussex
We have the pheasant shoot shooting across our fields today. They're bloody useless. I watched one chap miss 5 birds.
A lot of game shots are absolutely useless. We did a corporate entertainment shoot at work last year. It was an absolute piece of piss. I shot 47 out of 50 and should never have missed the three I did. One client who has numerous game days every year managed 21.
dick and his mate had various shooting parties , often corporate, with some the birds were fare safer than the beaters or the rest of the gun line.
getting a pierced earlobe is a bit radical for a retired brig. gen. not funny if he had not almost avoided the end with the holes quickly enough, as it was he never regained hearing in that ear.
a few had to be sent home for an inability to follow simple safety instructions, stepping out, swinging into the line, being so drunk they could barely walk across a field etc etc
however holding shooting parties is a means to pay for hedging work and such like as well as for raising your own phessies ( which can be oven readied in a similar way to chooks rather than shredded in the air).
ps several of the dogs refused to work if they saw there were strangers shooting.
picking shot out of a labrador is a messy business and they don't like it.
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