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Dove and Dates
Here’s a new take on an old classic: bacon-wrapped dove poppers with sweet dates and crunchy cashews. You’ll appreciate the contrast of sweet and salty, and soft and crunchy.
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Sage-stuffed Quail
To stuff quail, I recommend deboning them, which will make them easier to eat. Jacques Pépin has a helpful video on deboning quail on YouTube, although I kept the leg bones intact. This preparation will tack on more prep time, and can be quite tedious. If you go this route, debone quail before you start anything else – the day before, even. Otherwise, cook quail and the stuffing separately.
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Dove and Shoestring Fries
For a first-time hunt, doves make for tough initiation. Although the dove symbolizes peace, don’t mistake that for frailty. These fast-flying birds can change direction on a dime, seemingly possessing a Matrix-like ability to dodge shot. And just when you think you’ve hit one, it keeps on sailing.
Barbecued Peach-Jalapeno Quail
With peaches and warm weather in season, this sweet and spicy barbecued quail recipe is one to try this summer – along with a cold glass of sangria.
Pheasant Bird Dog with Kansas City Style BBQ Sauce
Have you seen these `Bird Dawgs` that Buffalo Wild Wings sells? It’s basically a chicken strip on a hot dog bun, with BBQ or Buffalo sauce, Cole Slaw and Green Onions. I got a few the other day for lunch smothered in Buffalo sauce, pictured below, however they left the Slaw and Onions off mine. I was looking for something to do with the left-over KC BBQ sauce I made in my last recipe post and decided to attempt to do my own version of BWWs `Bird Dawg` style sandwich. This is my Pheasant Bird Dog with Kansas City Style BBQ Sauce.
Smoked Duck over Oven Baked Fries with KC BBQ Sauce
Every year my wife and I try to cook a themed meal for the Super Bowl. Most of the time will look at the teams involved and try to use food both cities are known for, then try to fuse them together. This year it was the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs playing against each other. Since I used to live around KC, I was pulling for the Chiefs this year, but thought the Eagles were probably the stronger team. I decided to do this Smoked Duck with Duck Fat French Fries drizzled with a Kansas City style bar-b-que sauce. While the Smoked Duck doesn’t really have anything to do with Philadelphia, the bird is supposed to represent an Eagle, or a smoked eagle in this case. This just symbolic since the team’s mascot is a bird.
Scarpariello Pheasant with Garlic Mashed Potatoes
I was looking to use some leftover ingredients in the refrigerator and decided on making this Scarpariello Pheasant served over Garlic Mashed Potatoes. Scarpariello translates to shoemaker style, supposedly even a poor Italian shoemaker family could afford to make this meal. There isn’t much to it, it cooks in a single skillet, it’s quick and easy to make. This dish is basically pheasant breast braised in a liquid with Italian sausage, peppers and onions. I’ve made this before and haven’t been impressed with the results, but this time it turned out amazing! I tried to amp up the heat by adding Jalapenos and crushed red peppers, but if you’re not into heat you can leave them out. I served mine over garlic mashed potatoes, but you can also serve with pasta, polenta, or even grits.
Duck Nachos
Nachos is a meal all by itself. Loaded with cheese, beans, meat and fresh veggies, it’s the perfect bite for a quiet night in, comfy sweats and a favorite movie. And if you have the time, don’t just serve any nachos. This one is topped with tender duck meat and cotija, a crumbly hard Mexican cheese for a bit of salt and funk. Make sure to keep plenty of ice-cold beer on hand.
Smoked Turkey Cajun Gumbo
This is one of my go-to recipes that I make all the time, so when I was looking for stuff to make with my left-over smoked turkey, this recipe was a no brainer. It’s simple to make and the results are always delicious, I promise you won’t need to worry about leftovers here. I made my own turkey stock to use with this recipe, but you can use chicken stock to save time. My wife said she hoped I wrote down how I made this because it was the best gumbo she’s had. Of course, she’s not from Louisiana, so I don’t know if you can trust her judgement, but she is a cook.
Smoked Turkey Enchilada Casserole
This is a Smoked Turkey Enchilada Casserole I made with left over Thanksgiving Turkey. You can make this with either a red or green salsa, or both if you want to make a Christmas Edition. I’ve made it both ways, I really liked it with both red and green salsa, I’m including some brief notes below on how I made mine, but these instructions will focus on using the green Salsa Verde. I’ve made this several times, it’s particularly good in the morning with a fresh fried egg served on top of it. I prefer the corn tortillas in this recipe because they fall apart more easily, making it easier to scoop out and serve. The flour tortillas hold up better but will need to be cut before serving. I think the flour tortillas would be better for traditional enchiladas, where they are rolled up with the Turkey and filling inside.
Leftover Smoked Turkey Pot Pie
Left-over Turkey is one of my favorite meals and I can’t get enough it during the holiday season. I’ll cook extra turkey’s each year, just to make sure I have plenty of leftover meat. This year is no different, the weekend after Thanksgiving, I smoked two more birds in my backyard smoker. So far, I’ve made Smoked Turkey Gumbo, Turkey Enchiladas Casserole, Turkey Quesadillas and Turkey BQQ Sandwich, plus this Turkey Pot Pie. I might try to post all these recipes, but I didn’t take a lot of pictures. These were all pretty quick meals to prepare and don’t take a ton of ingredients.
Vietnamese Poached Pheasant with Ginger-Garlic Rice
Vietnamese chicken and rice is comfort food. It is traditionally prepared with a whole broiler chicken thats gently poached until just cooked through and tender. The poaching liquid is then used to cook the rice, which is then fried with rendered chicken fat, lots of ginger and garlic. This dish will make your house smell amazing.
Extra Spicy General Tso Pheasant
I think there are basically two types of restaurants you can find in just about every descent sized town in America, Mexican and Chinese. Unless of course, you live in Tennessee, then its Mexican, Chinese and BBQ. I know my family and me eat our share of both Mexican and Chinese food. My favorite Chinese dish, hands down... General Tso Chicken. I thought this would be a fun recipe to try at home, so this is my attempt at Extra Spicy General Tso Pheasant.
Pheasant Spaghetti with Whole Wheat Pasta
I planted a bunch of Brandywine tomatoes this year, along with an equal number of San Marzano tomatoes. My Brandywine tomatoes didn't do so hot, maybe it was the extreme heat we had all summer or the lack of rain. They looked healthily starting out and I was hopeful they'd produce a good crop, but when we finally did get rain, they basically exploded on the vine. Their skin started to form cracks all over, the whole lot of them just looked gross and unsightly. My San Marzano tomatoes on the other hand actually did great, a side from being a little undersized and a few developing blossom rot.
Spicy Pheasant Sandwich with Paprika Butter Sauce
I planted a bunch of cucumbers in my garden this year. I planted them, and they died, so I planted them again. Those also died, I believe it was my sixth attempt before I got any plants that survived long enough to be put into the ground. I'm not sure why they kept dying, but I started them early, moving them from inside the house to outside on warm sunny days, to back indoors to avoid the cool nights. Maybe it was the shock of going from inside to outside, over and over that killed them, or perhaps I just overwatered them. All this to say, I ended up with a truckload of really nice cucumbers. I had so many that I had to give a bunch of them away, but what I kept, I made into spicy pickles. Those spicy pickles are really the reason I decided to do this recipe, plus the fact that I had some left-over Brioche Buns from the previous recipe. I've always heard that Chick-Fil-A marinades their chicken in pickles juice, and they also serve pickles on their sandwich, so this fillet sandwiched seemed like a good recipe to try, as it let me use my spicy pickles two ways. Sometimes at work, they cater to Chick-Fil-A and it always seems like a treat. I personally like the spicy sandwich and wanted to create my own home version. This isn't meant to be a copy of their recipe, it was only used for inspiration. This is my Spicy Pheasant Fillet Sandwich with a Paprika Butter Sauce.
Blueberry Bacon Pheasant Burger with Jalapeno Fries
I have four gorgeous, healthily blueberry bushes in my backyard. Each one seems to be a different variety because they all put on blueberries at different times. I've picked a ton of these berries this year, it was a continuous supply of berries from June to July. I froze a bunch of them, and I've been throwing a handful in my oatmeal each morning ... but I wanted to do something else with them, so I decided to try to make some blueberry jelly. It can be messy, and draining the berries takes a while, but it's totally worth it. I also had a bumper crop of Jalapeño's this year, so I sliced some of them up and added them to the berries while I was cooking them down, just to give it a little spicy kick.
Pheasant Helper with Roasted Sun Sugar Tomato Sauce
Growing up, mom cooked a lot of Hamburger Helper. It was quick, it was easy, and it was cheap. When you're feeding a bunch of picky kids, it's something everyone would eat. I remember always going back for seconds and thirds, and still not getting enough. Admittedly, I haven't had Hamburger Helper in the past 10 - 15 years, but if you sat it down in front of me today, I promise you I'd eat every bit of it. Cheeseburger Macaroni and Beef Stroganoff were the absolute best. It's not fine dining, I know, but give me some Hamburger Helper and a slice of crusty bread ... and I'd be one happy camper. For this recipe, I wanted to pay homage to that classic Hamburger Helper, single pot type meal. This is what I came up with Pheasant Helper with Roasted Sun Sugar Tomato Sauce.
Brown-Sugar Glazed Dove Poppers
Dove poppers are celebratory, like a hurrah to the beginning of hunting season. Here's how I like them: The breasts marinated for extra flavor and a little bit of sweetness to glaze onto the bacon. Also, don't make the mistake of using expensive, thick-cut bacon, which takes too long to cook. The thin, cheap, fatty stuff will work just fine.
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Braised Duck & Beans
This bean dish hits the spot in winter. It's also an opportunity for hunters to save and eat duck legs, which are too good to leave to the coyotes.
Middle Eastern Partridge Pizza
This Middle Eastern Pizza is the fifth and last gamebird related pizza I'll be posting for the month of July. Instead of a traditional tomato-based pizza sauce, I'm using Hummus, which is a dip made from Chickpeas. While I'm using Sumac to season my Hummus, Sabra sells a spicy hummus which would also be good in this recipe. I'm including instructions on how to make your own Hummus, but using a store bought brand will be a big time saver.
Mediterranean Partridge Pizza
This is pizza four of the five gamebird related pizzas I was planned to post the month of July. I'm calling it a Mediterranean Partridge Pizza. While I was discussing ideas with my wife about how I wanted to build this pizza, she kind of turned her nose up at it, saying that it was a lot of bold competing flavors. She works at a local pizza shop, so I wasn't sure how this one would turn out but decided to forge ahead with my plan ... and to be honest, of the five pizzas I'm posting this month... this one ended up being my second favorite. Something about this pizza just makes you want to go back for another bite, even my wife wanted more of this pizza.
Southwestern Chukar Pizza
This is pizza number three of my summer pizza blowout. I'm calling it a Southwestern Chukar Pizza; it's loaded with Black Beans, Corn, Jalapeno, Red Onions, and Roasted Chukar. Instead of a traditional pizza sauce, I'm using a spicy little bean dip. The recipe I'm including is for doing one 12-inch pizza, with a thick crust. You could roll this dough out thinner if you wanted to do a larger, thin crust pizza, but our pizza oven is only big enough for these small pizzas.
Buffalo Pheasant Pizza
This is my homemade Buffalo Pheasant Pizza, pizza number two of my summer of pizza extravaganza, where every Saturday in the month of July, I'll try to post another gamebird-focused pizza recipe that we made here at home.
Quail, Sage, and Mushroom Pizza
The wife and I do a fair amount of cooking at home, so it's not unusual that I'd get her something for the kitchen as a gift. Last Christmas, I got her a small outdoor pizza oven ... and we've been using the fire out of it. Coincidentally, she was working as a nurse at the time but now works for a local pizza shop. While she likes to cook the traditional Margherita Pizza, which consists of Mozzarella Cheese, Basil, Olive Oil, and Tomatoes, I want to experiment a little. The next few recipes I post will be a few of my experiments. I thought they all turned out pretty good, but this Quail, Sage, and Mushroom Pizza is my favorite. Not just my favorite from this batch of pizzas, but one of my all-time favorites.
Tea-smoked Canada Goose
If you're looking to make an impression at the dinner table, this recipe is it: The flavors and aromas in this tea-smoked goose breast are by no means shy. Sichuan peppercorns impart a juniper berry-like flavor, while tea leaves, star anise and rice are gently toasted to create a smoke that's almost intoxicating. The better news is this dish is fairly simple to make—the most difficult part might be tracking down dried Sichuan peppercorns, also called prickly ash.
Pheasant Parmesan
Im pretty sure this was the 2nd or 3rd meal I cooked for my wife when we were dating. Shes got a birthday coming up, so Im posting this in honor of her. We like to go out and eat as much as the next person, but often times when we were dating, wed just stay home and cook together instead of going out. In fact, we collected all the meals we cooked together that first year and created a cookbook that we gave to friends and family. I think we called the book #wecooktogether, meals from our first year. We actually still refer to that cookbook a lot!!
Pheasant Lasagna
I had enough ingredients left over from the Pheasant Manicotti recipe that I recently did, that I decided to repurpose the leftover ingredients to make this Pheasant Lasagna. Truth be known, I still had enough ingredients after this recipe to still do another recipe after this one. I don't have the best method for shopping for ingredients, I tend to just put stuff in the cart that I think I might need or would want to incorporate, usually this means I end up over buying and spending a bunch of money. Most of the times when I go shopping for ingredients, I only have an idea of what I want to make, I don't really have a shopping list, just some rough ideas. It would probably be cheaper if I'd prepare a little before I go shopping, instead as I'm walking down the isles looking for ingredient, if I see something that interest me, I generally just put it in the cart. I may see something else on another isle that makes me want to go a different direction or even cook something totally different. I just end up buying all the ingredients in my cart, never putting anything back. Needless to say, my pantry is stocked!
Pheasant Manicotti
This recipe originally started out as Stuffed Shells, the only thing I was missing were the shells!! I had gone to the local Walmart to pick some up and the whole pasta/noodle isle was pretty much empty, along with most of the other isles. I decided I'd try Kroger in Corinth Mississippi, I hit their pasta isle and while they did have more pasta than Walmart, they didn't have any large shells either. Next ... I tried the Kroger in Savannah Tennessee, still no large shells! Food Giant, Piggy Wiggly ... no shells, no shells. Everybody is out of everything! Knowing that I had everything else I needed at home, I just need to find some large shells. I was ready to give up and thinking it just wasn't meant to be when I saw some Manicotti noodles at Piggy Wiggly and decided to just use those instead. So this is now Pheasant Manicotti!!
Pheasant Pozole Verda
For some reason, I tend to do a lot of these recipes in pairs. I don't know why, just happy accidents or poor planning on my part. It seems I just can't make up my mind sometimes. I'll usually have a particular ingredient in mind that I want to use, most of the time from my garden, and I'll come with several different ways I want to use it. I had recently made some Green Enchiladas with a homemade Green Enchiladas Sauce and Salsa Verde. I had used all my Green Enchiladas Sauce but had plenty of Salsa Verde left over, which isn't an issue as I have no problem eating Salsa Verde by itself, but I was wondering what else I could do with it. I decided to make this Pozole de Faisan con Chile Verde or Pheasant Pozole Verda, using some Pheasant I had in the freezer. Pozole is basically a Mexican soup made with Hominy and meat.
Quail and Waffles
This recipe follows classic fried chicken and waffles, but the spicy maple syrup is a nice surprise.
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Pheasant Enchiladas with Green Sauce
If you look through some of the recipes that I've posted over the years, you'll see that a lot of what I cook comes from the south and southwest. A lot of Cajun, Southwestern and Mexican flavors ... what can I say, I like it HOT! These Spicy Green Enchiladas are no exception, with a homemade Enchiladas sauce and super spicy Salsa Verde. These Green Enchiladas are going into our weekly dinner rotation!
Blackened Breakfast Quail over Cheesy Grits
I was trying to think of something quick I could cook myself for breakfast the other day, I know Shrimp and Grits are a southern classic, so I thought Id try to do a variation of that by cooking some Blackening Quail Breast and serving them over some Cheesy Grits. It's super quick to make, the grits only take five to six minutes to cook. If you time everything just right, you can have the quail and grits prepared, cooked and ready to eat in under ten minutes. One of my favorite meals to eat is Blackened Catfish fillets over Cheesy Grits. I like to cook it at home for lunch or dinner if I'm by myself, because they are so quick and easy to make, but super delicious and filling.
Gameday Gamebird Boudin Kolache
There used to be a small doughnut shop here in town, it had changed owners a few years ago but now it's shut down. They sold all kinds of different fresh pastries that they baked each day. Sometimes the wife and I would stop by in the morning on the way to work looking for breakfast and coffee. They used to make these breakfast Boudin Kolache's that were my absolute favorite. It was just boudin, wrapped in dough, but it was so good! We eventually attempted to make these at home and the boys loved them ... Any time the kids come to town, these are on the menu.
Sort-of Simple Slow Cooker Pheasant Chili
This is my Sort-of Simple Slow Cooker Chili. It's sort-of my go to Chili recipe when I'm hungry and feeling super lazy. It can be made with ground beef, deer, chicken, or turkey, but for this recipe I'm making it with ground pheasant. I typically make this on the stove in a Dutch oven if I'm in a hurry. This is an easy one pot meal with very little clean up. I'm calling this version Sort-of Simply Slow Cooker Chili because I sort-of didn't cook the whole thing in the slow cooker, but it's still super simple to make, without a lot of clean up. This isn't going to win any Chili contest, but it's a good hearty meal for a cold day that doesn't take a lot of effort. It does have beans in it, so if you live in Texas, you might call it a stew.
Sharp-tailed Grouse with Sunchokes
Sharp-tailed grouse and sunchokes are a match made upland: dark, richly-flavored sharptail begs for the sweet, nuttiness of roasted sunchokes. Plucked and cooked whole, there's something about a perfectly roasted bird that is so simple yet splendid. It's even more special when the bird was wild and hunted.
Pumpkin Pancakes with Candied Bacon and Fried Quail legs
I originally planned on posting a version of this recipe in October, two years ago, then again last year. I just haven't had the time to do so, hence the reason I'm now posting in January. I've made this several different times, each time just a little different. I love a big breakfast and this recipe makes a filling fall meal, with warm spice and lots of sugar! I served these Pumpkin Pancakes with a Maple Bourbon Butter, Spicy Candid Cacon and Fried Quail legs with a Tabasco Honey dipping sauce. You can garnish your pancakes with blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, or blackberries and top the whole thing off with a sprinkle of powdered sugar or black walnuts.
Holiday Cajun Smoked Turkey
This is my recipe for Holiday Cajun Smoked Turkey. I'm calling it a Holiday Turkey, I usually cook this every year, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, or any other time of year I can get a hold of cheap Turkey's. This recipe also works really well with Chicken, with a few adjustments. I like to buy Turkeys after Thanksgiving when they go on sale, so I can constantly have smoked Turkey in the refrigerator throughout the end of the year. To me, it doesn't get much better then left-over smoked turkey! I'll eat it cold, straight out of the refrigerator. Leftover turkey is pretty versatile, my wife and I recently took a Zoom cooking class online with the New Orleans Cooking School where we made Turkey Pot Pies, Turkey Gumbo with leftover Turkey. One of my all-time favorite meals, I could literally eat every day ... is to take leftover Turkey, shred it up and fry it in a hot skillet with butter. As it's frying, I sprinkle with the Cajun Seasoning, then when it's done, I serve it on a slice of bread, drizzling the whole thing the BBQ sauce, it's simple, quick and so good.
Pheasant Chilaquiles
I decided to do this meal because I needed to find something quick to do with some leftover pheasant meat that I had laid out. I didn't want it to go to waste and I didn't want to re-freeze it. Originally the kids had planned to come over to eat one evening, so I had laid out a bunch of extra meat. I wanted to make sure I had plenty to go around, but the kids ended up canceling at the last minute because they wanted to go out to eat with some friends. I didn't have a lot of time to prepare a meal but needed to use this meat, these Chilaquiles were perfect because they are quick and easy to prepare. I already had a bag of Corn Tostadas that needed to be used, some of dad's fresh farm eggs and a garden full of Jalapeno peppers that needed to be harvested.
Pheasant with Alfredo-Spinach Fettuccine
Here's a quick pheasant recipe that will have dinner ready on the table in 30 minutes.
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Bob White Kabobs with Red Bulgur Pilaf
In my last recipe post, I talked about the time my family was stationed in Turkey and my experience living off-base. Eventually, housing on the nearby Air Force base did become available and we were able to move. I remember how drastically different living on base was compared to living off base. As a little kid, it seemed like a completely different world. The base was like a desert oasis, I remember it being very tropical like, with a lot of green palm trees growing everywhere. There were tons of Iguanas that would lay out, basking in the sun, along the culverts and ditches that lined the streets and I remember there being a lot of Tree Fogs. Living on base, my parents would let us walk to school, I really don't remember if we even attended school during the time we lived off-base.
Pheasant Shawarma with Roasted Pepper Hummus
Being an Air Force brat, we lived a lot of different places where we got to experience a lot of different things. Of all the places we were stationed, the one place that stands out as the most unique was Turkey. This was way back in the 70's when Pan AM was still a major airline, and the cockpit doors were left open during the flight. I remember getting to meet the pilots, who gave me my very own pair of golden wings, albeit plastic ones, to pin to my shirt, it really made me feel like part of the crew. There wasn't any base housing available at the time, so we lived in some apartment buildings off base. The apartments were a single set of buildings out in a middle of a cotton field with nothing else around them. It felt barren and isolated. Off in the distance you could see a single mountain, who's peak was covered in snow all year round. Coming and going from the apartments, we'd see gypsies picking cotton from the surrounding fields. On a few occasions, a guy would come by the building, pulling a cart, he'd play music while a bear danced around in the parking lot and a monkey collected money with his hat. You would hear prayers being blasted over the air from a nearby Mosque during certain times of the day. We'd took a lot of road trips to go sight-seeing, I remember seeing temples carved into cliffsides in these deep ravines right off the side of the roads and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea.
Tuscan Pheasant with Dried San Marzano Tomatoes
I have several recipes I've posted on here where I try to find uses for the produce that I grew in my little garden. This time, it's for the San Marzano Tomatoes I planted. I planted several types of tomatoes this year and had the same lucky with all of them ... bad luck. Last year, I had some awesome, huge Tomatoes plants, this year, I couldn't get them to do anything. The San Marzano tomatoes I planted were the only ones to product anything, but even they didn't do that great. I had five of these plants that I put out, they all grew and survive, but only produced a handful of tomatoes. My wife buys a lot of canned San Marzano tomatoes, so I thought it'd be a good idea to try to grow some of our own. I didn't get many, just a few handfuls, all of which quickly got used in the Italian dishes my wife loves to cook.
Quail, Mushroom and Wild Rice Soup
I was never much of a soup person growing up, you couldn't pay me to eat it, it didn't matter what kind of soup it was. Fast forward 40 years and my how things have changed. I discovered Potato Soup several years ago, specifically, Zuppa Toscana soup from the Olive Garden. It's absolutely my favorite soup hands down! If you look through the recipes on this site, you'll see that I have two different version of that soup where I tried to recreate it at home with Pheasant. Give me a bowl of Potato soup and some bread, then just let me go to town!! Discovering Zuppa Toscana led me to trying different types of soup, like Loaded Potato Soup, Tomato Soup & Tortilla Soup, which my wife is in the kitchen making right now as I write this... now I love them all. Well, most of them any ways, there are still some soups that I wouldn't dare try, like Vegetable soup or Minestrone, I'm just not ready to try an all-vegetable based soup. When I told my wife I wanted to try to do a Mushroom and Rice soup, she turned her nose up at me and said she didn't think she'd like soup with rice in it. I guess we can all be kind of particular about our soups. Needless to say, I made the soup any way and she actually liked it!
Quail Saltimbocca
I have this herb garden in my backyard that's overrun with beautiful Basil. In the middle of it are these two lonely, but healthy sage plants. I was looking from something I could do with that sage and decided on making a Saltimbocca. If you're not familiar with a Saltimbocca, it's thin meat, generally veal, that's rolled up with Prosciutto and Sage, lightly fried then cooked in a pan sauce of white wine and butter. In my last recipe post, I made a Pheasant Saltimbocca, and it was delicious, but after finishing that recipe, there were still some things I wanted to try with it, so I decided to attempt a quail version of it. A classic southern recipe is Quail wrapped in bacon, and since Prosciuttos is a cousin to Bacon, I thought the pair would be great together in this recipe. Fruits generally also pairs well with Quail, so I added some sliced peaches and cook them with my wine sauce, then topped it off with some Mozzarella cheese! It turned out great, I just wish my Quail had been a little meatier.
Pheasant Saltimbocca with Basil Pesto Gnocchi
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.
Butter Pheasant
Butter chicken, or murgh makhani, is an Indian-English dish that is known around the world. This is my recipe made with pheasant. The tomato gravy is the star here, a creamy, rich and vibrant sauce that complements light game meats well.
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Blackened Pheasant Jambalaya
Having lived in Shreveport Louisiana for several years, I developed a taste for Cajun cuisine. Granted Shreveport is about as northern as you can get in Louisiana, still a good piece away from New Orleans and any real Cajun country. Shreveport may not be in the heart of Cajun country, but they, still found ways to celebrate Cajun heritage. They have their own version of Mardi Gras and a Crawfish festival, called Mudbug Madness. I didn't much care for Louisiana while I lived there, but now I look forward to going back when I get the chance. In fact, we'll often travel back to Louisiana around the end of May just to attend Mudbug Madness festival they host each year. During this event, downtown Shreveport is packed with people, food vendors and bands. You can find all sorts of Cajun cuisine served by various food vendors that line the streets all the while listening to Creole bands play their music from different stages. Of course you'll find tons of Crawfish being served along with corn, potatoes and sausage, but you'll also find Red Beans and Rice, Gumbo, Boudin, Alligator on a stick, Etouffee, Dirty Rice, Pralines, Beignets and Jambalaya. It's a cornucopia of Cajun cuisine and I love them all!
Blackend Bricked Pheasant
I'm a sucker for Cajun Food, but if I had a favorite Cajun cooking technique, it'd be Blackened food! While not a traditional creole cooking method, it did originate in New Orleans. Give me some Blackened fish any day of the week and you'll see a happy man! That being said, I wanted to do a Blackened Bird recipe to post on Gundog Central. Blackening is a method of cooking where you cover fish, chicken or some other protein with butter then generously coat with spices and herbs, finally it's placed on a hot skillet where the butter and spices form a black crust, and while it looks like burnt food, it's not the same thing. This recipe would be great by itself, or served with some rice or cheesy grits, but I'm making this Blackened Bricked Pheasant to use in another recipe, a Blacked Pheasant Jambalaya that I'll be posting later!
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.
Arroz Con El Faisan
After a long day at work, you don't always feel like coming home to cook food. Sometimes is just easier, and more relaxing to just jump in the car and drive down to one of the local Mexican restaurants for some good food and few margaritas! Me and my wife each have our regular meals that we get there, my two favorite go-to meals are the El Preferido and Tacos De Alambre. The El Preferido, is strips of chicken breast, covered with cheese sauce, to which I usually have them add Chorizo and Cilantro. I tried to create my own version of this at home several months ago, you can find it listed with my other recipes, as "Mi Favorito". I must say, it turned out pretty damn good and the longer it sat, the better it got, one of my favorite meals, hence the title. This recipe is going to be very similar, with a lot of the same ingredients. I got off work a little early one Monday and since it would be a while before my wife got home, I decided I'd just cook dinner for the both of us. I didn't want to spend all night cooking and I didn't want to dirty up a lot of dishes that I'd just have to clean up later, so this one skillet, Arroz Con El Faisan, seemed like a really good choice. Arroz Con El Faisan, basically just means rice with pheasant.
