GUNDOG CENTRAL - HUNTING DOGS FOR SALE

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Jeff Davis | https://gundogcentral.com | All Hunting Articles

Posted 09/19/2021

I have a little herb garden that sits under a window in the backyard, it's roughly 2 feet by 4 feet. I was hesitant about putting it in the backyard because it doesn't get a lot of sun. The trees block the morning sun, and the house blocks the afternoon sun, allowing it to only get direct sunlight in the middle of the afternoon. We planted Basil in it last year, with no expectation that it would grow, but it did, and it flourished! We had more Basil than we knew what to do with. We made lots of Pesto, then my wife preserved what she could with Salt and Olive oil in mason jars. This year we decided to try planting it with a few other herbs, Thyme, Oregano, Rosemary, Sage, and Parsley, along with more Basil. The Basil came up strong and took over, we have these big, healthy looking Basil plants and very little of anything else. I do however have these two lonely sage plants, towering out of a sea of Basil. Everything else we planted in this herb garden, showed up briefly, then disappeared. I don't know if we didn't water it enough, or it the Basil just choked everything else out.



I wanted to find something I could cook with these lonely sage plants, what I came up with is this Saltimbocca. Actually, I did two version of it, one was this Pheasant Saltimbocca and the other is a Quail Saltimbocca, which I'll post later. Saltimbocca is a piece of meat (typically veal), pounded flat, then rounded up with prosciutto and sage. It's then pan fried, then cooked in a marinated of white wine and butter. I tried to stay true to that definition with this recipe, although I added Mozzarella cheese to mine.

This was a very tasty recipe that's simply to make. You'll lightly pound the Pheasant breast with a mallet. You don't have to put a lot of effort into this, over pounding or trying to get it to thin, we tear up the delicate pheasant meat. You just need to work it until it's somewhere between a quarter and a half of an inch thick. Once you have it semi flat, place the breast meat skin side down and place a slice of prosciutto on top of it, then tear off a thin slice of Mozzarella cheese and place it on top of Prosciutto, or sprinkle the cheese if you have shredded, finally top off the whole thing with a sage leaf. Start at one end and just roll it up, like a croissant roll, once it's rolled up, just stick a few toothpicks through it to hold it in place. After cooking, do not forget to remove the toothpicks!! Heat up butter in a skillet, once it's hot, drop a few spare sage leaves in the butter and let it fry until crispy, then remove them to a plate. This will help flavor the oil, plus give us crispy sage to garnish the dish with. Add the pheasant breast to the skillet and lightly brown, rolling around in the butter until all sides are brown. At this point, I choose to move them to an oven safe pan and finish them off in the oven, using the hot skillet and brown bits in the bottom of it, to make my sauce. Technically, or traditionally you should cook the meat in the sauce not in the oven, but I choose not to do that here.

I also used the Basil growing with the sage to make a pesto to use in Basil Pesto Gnocchi. I made my own Gnocchi here and will include instructions on how I made it, but you can save time by using store bought Gnocchi if you want to try this recipe.

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