Pheasant Coq Au Vin

I keep a list of meals I want to attempt for Gundog Central and that list seems to constantly get longer and longer. This Coq Au Vin has been on there for a very long time, I've struggled with how I wanted to make it. Not that I didn't know how to make it, I've made before, at home with my wife multiply times. It's a lot like making Beef Bourguignon, which has a very similar process. I just hadn't tried to make it with any wild game before. I thought about this a long time, even jotted down ideas in a notebook about different things I might try. This is something that I knew I wanted to make, but just wasn't sure how I wanted to go about it. This is actually one of the first recipes I wanted to post on Gundog Central, I was just conflicted and my indecision kept letting me put it off.

[%PHOTO-2%]Often times, I'll look at my list of food ideas and realize that I already have the ingredients to make something that's on it ... and that's kind of what happened here. It was time to harvest some of the Onions, Carrots, Garlic and Thyme I'd been growing in my tiny backyard garden, so I was trying to figure out what I could do with all this stuff I grew. That's when I realized, it was time to stop planning to do this Coq Au Vin and just do it. To me, this Coq Au Vin was the perfect harvest recipe for my little garden produce. Since most of the vegetables I used in it can be either winter or summer crops, late spring or fall seems like the perfect time to make this meal, as you gather fresh produce from your own garden. I even used a homemade Cabernet Sauvignon, that me and wife made in the garage. Of course, you don't have to make your own wine to make this recipe, any store bought dry red wine will work. I also used some Wild Hog bacon in this recipe, that you can substitute that with regular Bacon, Guanciale or Pancetta.

[%PHOTO-3%]I originally just planned on using pheasant leg quarters to do this recipe, I know the legs can have a lot of sinew in them but braised in this liquid for a long time would have made for a pretty tasty meal. I decided to just try to use the whole pheasant, after all it fit perfectly in my Dutch oven. My major concern was overcooking the breast meat waiting on the legs and thighs to cook, but that really didn't turn out to be a problem. I think having the lid left off my Dutch oven and not having the bird fully submerged in liquid, help even out the cooking process and let some of the liquid reduce down. The whole thing turned out prefect, although my presentation wasn't exactly what I was looking for, it was delicious! The meat literally just fell off the bones, even some the bones, simply broke in half while cooking. Serve this with some good old crusty white bread to sop up that sauce and you'll think you died and went to food heaven!