Blog

Posted Sunday, 12 February 2012  /  Written by Patrick

At this time of year, we tend to have a bit of extra game in the freezer which could do with eating up. Pheasant often tends to dry out as a meat when roasted, but last week we tried a slightly different and novel way of using up the leftover pheasant from the season just passed: Pheasant Biryani!

Ingredients

2 Pheasants
400ml chicken stock (cube is fine)
250 ml natural yoghurt
500 grams wholegrain basmati rice
2 large onions
Ghee/Butter
Cashew nuts
Raisins

Biryani spice mix:

1/2tsp chilli powder
4 small green, medium heat chillies, finely chopped
A good pinch of curry leaves
2tsp ground cumin
30g fresh ginger, scraped and finely grated
4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2tbsp garam masala
1tsp cumin seeds
The seeds from 12 green cardamom pods
2tbsp chopped coriander leaves
2tbsp chopped mint leaves

Cut the whole pheasants into four (i.e 2 breasts and two legs each) and mix the pieces of the pheasant with the Biryani mix (chilli powder, chillies, cumin, curry leaves, cardamom, ginger, garlic, garam masala, turmeric, coriander and mint). Marinade this for at least half an hour.

Heat some ghee/butter and fry the onions on a medium heat in an oven proof pan until they are golden brown and set to one side. Remove the pieces of pheasant from the marinade and reserve the marinade. Fry the pheasant on a high heat, lightly browning them in the same pan. Add the stock, yoghurt, browned onions and any marinade that's left and cook on a low heat for 25-30 minutes until the pheasant is tender, then remove from the heat. Meanwhile cook the rice.

Pre-heat the oven to 220C/gas mark 7. Add the rice, cashew nuts and raisins to the pheasant mix and put the pot over a high heat for a couple of minutes to bring the contents to the boil. Transfer to the oven for 40 minutes. Stir the whole pot and then serve with poppadums, chutney and a raita.

If the thought of preparing the Biryani mix is too much to bear, then we recommend trying using this mix from the Curry Tree as a pre-prepared option:

http://www.currytree.co.uk/view/curry-tree-biryani-spice-mix

It is very good and does save a considerable amount of hassle. We have tried both and whilst the home made mix is better, it is not overwhelmingly so.


 

Back to blog posts