Taste
Katherine Grandstrand| kgrandstrand@aberdeennews.com
Many people find pheasant dry, tough and gamey.
Jason Hill thinks they’re just cooking it wrong.
“If you look at old, old recipes for pheasant dating back hundreds of years ago, it’s a very low flame and slowly cooked,” Hill said.
He won the home chef category of the inaugural Pheasant Sandwich Shootout last year with his pheasant salad melt sandwich. This year, he’s competing in the professional chef division.
Hill is now the head chef at Mavericks Steak & co*cktails in Aberdeen.
“I’ll be on the professional side this time, so the (home chef) title is up for grabs,” he said.
Pheasant isn’t as forgiving as chicken or turkey — birds that most people have some experience cooking by the time they’re college-aged — but that doesn’t mean it’s hard to cook, Hill said.
“You have to be very subtle with your cooking temps with pheasant,” he said. “A lot of times people will overcook pheasant just because they are thinking the time and temp needs to be the same as chicken when it doesn’t.”
Many people use heat that’s too high or cook pheasant too long, Hill said. A slow cooker is a great way to help avoid that trap.
Another method: marination. For his award-winning sandwich, Hill marinated his pheasant in Burgundy for about two days before cooking.
“When you marinate it, whatever acid you’re putting it into is going to break down that meat and make it a lot more tender,” he said. “If you do tend to overcook it a little bit, that meat’s going to be broken down from the marinating.”
He said he stole the technique from a classic French dish, coq au vin. Translated, it means “rooster with wine.” It was a way to cook old roosters.
“Pheasant is a very common food in Europe, so I kind of thought of how pheasant is cooked in other parts of the world on a regular basis,” Hill said.
Another reason pheasant gets dry is a lack of fat, Hill said. Wild pheasant doesn’t have the fat content a farm-raised chicken or turkey would, so it’s important that the cook not cut back on fat.
He recommends butter or olive oil, which add flavor.
“I’m always a big fan of sticking butter underneath the skin,” Hill said.
He said he has been eating pheasant since he was a kid, hunting the birds in his home state of Michigan and now in South Dakota.
“I always hear people say, ‘Oh, it’s too gamey,’” Hill said. “But to me, I think the gameyness is the nicer part of it.”
Ingredients
- 8 slices of a hearty grain bread, preferably quarter-inch slices or bigger
- 8 slices aged cheddar cheese
- 16 slices cooked bacon
- 2 ounces softened butter
- 2 pheasants, cleaned and plucked
- 1 bottle of red wine, preferably a Bordeaux or Burgundy
- 1 bunch fresh rosemary
- 1 bunch fresh sage
- 2 Granny Smith apples
- 3 cups mayonnaise
- 1 cup roasted pecans
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
Three days ahead:
- Combine the pheasant and wine and marinate in the refrigerator up to 30 hours.
Two days ahead:
- Once marinated, completely remove the pheasant and pat dry. Preheat oven to 450.
- Season pheasant with salt and pepper on the outside, roast in oven for about 45 minutes, internal temperature needs to reach 155.
One day ahead:
- Remove pheasant and cool in refrigerator or wrap and place in ice bath to cool overnight.
- Roast pecans with a a tablespoon of butter in 350-degree oven until brown—about 10 minutes.
- Take the cooked pheasant and remove as much meat as possible and cut into 1/4 inch chunks (breast, thigh meat).
- Dice up the apples.
- Cut up rosemary and sage, needing 3 teaspoons of each. Add 1 teaspoon salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons pepper and the mayonnaise.
- Combine all of these ingredients with the diced pheasant. The salad is best if allowed to refrigerate overnight so the flavors can meld.
The day of:
- Assemble sandwiches: Take half stick of room temperature butter and add 1 tablespoon of diced fresh sage.
- Warm a nonstick pan on the stove, butter two slices of bread with the sage butter, place in the pan.
- Add a slice of cheddar on both slices, toast the bread, about a minute, then add the pheasant salad and two strips of bacon to one slice of cheesy bread. Put slices together and serve once melted through.
- Cooks are challenged to come up with a new spin on the classic pheasant sandwich recipe.
- Nov. 8, judging begins at 7 p.m.
- Aberdeen Civic Arena, 203 S. Washington St.
- Register by 5 p.m. Oct. 26.
- Two categories: home chef or professional chef.
