Pheasant Success

Shortly after Billy passed away I was kinda freaking out about all the food in my freezer and hastily decided to cook some pheasant breast for dinner. Needless to say, it was a disaster. I tried the whole breading thing and cooking the pieces in oil… and I ended up with the classic burned outside and raw inside. Billy made that look SO easy.

Tonight I attempted round two with cooking pheasant breasts and I achieved success! I decided to plop two breasts into the Instant Pot with a cup of chicken stock and one of those onion soup packets. I set the timer for 25 minutes and let ’em cook. It’s delicious! Not too dry and plenty of flavor. I cut and pulled the meat apart and then tossed some into a bowl of tomatoes and pesto pasta. And I’ve got a container of leftovers that will make something good tomorrow too.

It feels good to have made something successful with pheasant tonight. Today marks four months since my sweet Billy passed away. And I can only imagine he’s watching my adventures in the kitchen with a huge smirk.

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that looks great.

Good to hear that you had success. It’s always rewarding making something that turns out to be good.

Well done Sharon! That sounds tasty.

Dad

Yum!!

Looks great!

Crockpot with cream of mushroom soup works good as well.

Andrew Pansch wrote:

Crockpot with cream of mushroom soup works good as well.

That’s almost exclusively what I do. A cast iron oven works just as good as the crock pot too.

Andrew Pansch wrote:

Crockpot with cream of mushroom soup works good as well.

Crockpot and C of M can make anything taste good. (except a wild duck) yuk!

That looks amazing! Nicely done.

I’m a big meal prep person (on Sunday I usually make 5 lunches for the week), and my wife “won’t eat” pheasant, which means I eat about 1 a week/every other week. I’ve noticed that I can get 5 meals for myself off of a whole bird. I try to end the year with my MN Limit of 9 birds plus my SD Limit of 15 birds in the freezer. Gives me 24 weeks worth of pheasant. Through cooking all of those (and I’m not a pro cook), I have figured out a few things and there’s about a million different ways to cook it.

I usually cook them in a crockpot for 5 hours on low, pull them out right before they are about to fall apart (right before any little bones and tendons start to fall off and make their way to the bottom), shred them, add back into crockpot to finish cooking for an hour or 2 and add them to any variety of dishes.

This week I made pheasant chili – just put in any of your normal special chili ingredients plus the whole pheasant. Pull the bird at 5 hrs, shred the meat, add back in.

Last week was Beer Can Pheasant on the grill – Similar to “beer butt chicken.”
https://honest-food.net/barbecued-pheasant-on-the-grill/

Week before was Pheasant Tacos – Whole bird, jar of salsa, cut up onion in crockpot, shred meat, add to tacos.

Dutch ovens work great. In the summer when the garden was plentiful with cabbage and cherry/grape tomatoes, I simmered a pheasant with either of those in the dutch oven on low for an hour or two. I also made a lot of pheasant salads in the summer when the garden was full of produce and lettuce, just put the bird in the crockpot with some sort of liquid (I like Italian Dressing).

In the fall when apples are plentiful, I’ll fill the crockpot with apples and pheasant. Mix into things like a stir fry.

I would recommend searching this website for a variety of recipes, Hank Shaw is a great cook when it comes to Wild Game. He also has a few books.
https://honest-food.net/

Great job on the pheasant Sharon

We haven’t had pheasant in years. But you did a great job Sharon. Pheasant is one of those birds that can be a tough one to learn to cook. Your dish looks great and we may try that with chicken. Thanks for the idea.

mnrabbit wrote:

I try to end the year with my MN Limit of 9 birds

A lot of hunters don’t even harvest 9 birds in an entire season!