Cooking Pheasant
- Thread starter Kooch
- Start date
Catscratch
5 year old buck +
It's been a couple of decades since I shot a pheasant, but I loved to hunt them way back when. Don't know if it was the proper way to cook them but I would coat them in flour and slow fry them in cast iron like you would slow fried chicken. And maybe a light brown gravy to finish them off. I thought they were delicious!
There are lots of good pheasant options out there, but they can be dry and a little tough if made using some chicken recipes.
Here are a couple pheasant recipes that we really like.
Fillet the breast meat off the carcass and butterfly the fillet so it has a constant thickness. Cut each half into 2 -3 strips perpendicular to the grain and place an onion slice and a pickled jalapeño slice inside the meat. Wrap with bacon and grill out until the bacon is crisp and you will have some good tasting pheasant.
We save the thigh meat for soups or pheasant gravy over biscuits.
Another option is to cut the pheasant into strips (again, cutting perpendicular to the meat grain) and lightly brown in butter and add to fettuccini alfredo.
My kids prefer pheasant nuggets that are coated in a 50/50 mix of cajun and regular shore lunch, then deep fried.
Pheasant is not as good as ruffed grouse, but they are still very good in my opinion.
Here are a couple pheasant recipes that we really like.
Fillet the breast meat off the carcass and butterfly the fillet so it has a constant thickness. Cut each half into 2 -3 strips perpendicular to the grain and place an onion slice and a pickled jalapeño slice inside the meat. Wrap with bacon and grill out until the bacon is crisp and you will have some good tasting pheasant.
We save the thigh meat for soups or pheasant gravy over biscuits.
Another option is to cut the pheasant into strips (again, cutting perpendicular to the meat grain) and lightly brown in butter and add to fettuccini alfredo.
My kids prefer pheasant nuggets that are coated in a 50/50 mix of cajun and regular shore lunch, then deep fried.
Pheasant is not as good as ruffed grouse, but they are still very good in my opinion.
We used to raise/hunt them.....have eaten tons.
Chicken-ish flavor but as mentioned above, they have a real propensity to dry out. Novelty chicken...only second to Ruffed Grouse. Low and slow after a sear, whether a dutch oven, crock pot, instapot, etc. It does not hurt to gently tenderize the outer breast portions with a tenderizing mallet. You can deep fry them (nugget recipe) or try something like wontons, pot stickers or egg rolls. The soup idea works and would also suggest anything with a sauce. My wife would do pot pie, a homemade version of Lipton Noodles&Sauce, primavera or pheasant and dumplings. Its good meat but cooks so fast with little room for error.....and is trickier to prepare than chicken by a good margin. I can recall once or twice where roasted whole birds (in an oven bag with white wine, onions and apples) came out good despite many attempts. Watch for shot, bone edges and fragments, and remove the clear "snotty stuff" from the breasts
Chicken-ish flavor but as mentioned above, they have a real propensity to dry out. Novelty chicken...only second to Ruffed Grouse. Low and slow after a sear, whether a dutch oven, crock pot, instapot, etc. It does not hurt to gently tenderize the outer breast portions with a tenderizing mallet. You can deep fry them (nugget recipe) or try something like wontons, pot stickers or egg rolls. The soup idea works and would also suggest anything with a sauce. My wife would do pot pie, a homemade version of Lipton Noodles&Sauce, primavera or pheasant and dumplings. Its good meat but cooks so fast with little room for error.....and is trickier to prepare than chicken by a good margin. I can recall once or twice where roasted whole birds (in an oven bag with white wine, onions and apples) came out good despite many attempts. Watch for shot, bone edges and fragments, and remove the clear "snotty stuff" from the breasts
S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
Weather it's pheasant or turkey we prefer to bread and deep fry them. Always juicy and delicious.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
About 90% of any pheasant recipes I've ever read had bacon involved somehow - if that tells you anything.
We've smeared grouse and pheasant liberally with butter, then draped bacon over the top of the breasts in a roaster. Added lots of chunked onions & mushrooms, with some chicken soup or bouillon to make some broth for gravy, since game birds are dry. Also roasted pheasant or grouse breasts along with whole chicken for the skin fat the chicken added, along with basic poultry seasoning, onions.
We've smeared grouse and pheasant liberally with butter, then draped bacon over the top of the breasts in a roaster. Added lots of chunked onions & mushrooms, with some chicken soup or bouillon to make some broth for gravy, since game birds are dry. Also roasted pheasant or grouse breasts along with whole chicken for the skin fat the chicken added, along with basic poultry seasoning, onions.
My friend made this pheasant recipe for Christmas last year. Very similar he cut them into 2 inch squares and used a slice of fresh jalapeño with bacon wrapped around it. They were so good.
Perdix
Yearling... With promise
I started making crock pot pheasant tacos this year. Put the pieces of meat in the crock pot, add chicken broth, a packet of taco seasoning, and a packet of ranch dressing (powder). Let it cook all day and then shred. Taco shells and fixings are cheap. No more issues of dry or tough birds. It's probably the easiest way I've found to have them consistently turn out.
