{"id":624,"date":"2010-11-03T23:52:02","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T04:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/?p=624"},"modified":"2012-05-01T10:19:55","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T15:19:55","slug":"budgie-in-the-pot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/?p=624","title":{"rendered":"Budgie in the pot"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Irrelevant image (sent to me, post-Succubus, as part of Armitage's ongoing persecution)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are few birds more handsome than a cock ring-necked pheasant in his autumn glory. Proudly plumed but spectacularly stupid,\u00a0they flaunt themselves before the guns. Once dead, however, gutted, plucked and trussed, they are nothing to write home about. I purchased one from that excellent butchery, Sanagan\u2019s Meat Locker in Kensington Market, and took it home to cook.<\/p>\n

Pheasants were a wonderful treat when I was a boy. My mother occasionally cooked a brace of them for Sunday lunch, roasting them perfectly, with a light canopy of crispy bacon (not wrapped in bacon because the bird ends up steamed \u2013 more of a bacon toup\u00e9e), serving them with crisp potatoes, bread sauce, a \u201csand\u201d of fine breadcrumbs finished in the juices in the pan, many vegetables and gravy. We were always warned to watch out for shot \u2013 and we often found the tiny shotgun pellets in the meat. The tail feathers were saved so my brother and I could run around my grandmother\u2019s deep garden after lunch with them stuck in our hair, pretending to be First Nations warriors (though that was not the term we used in England in the last century) with our home-made willow bows and arrows.<\/p>\n

Faced with the tight, yellowish-pinkish piece of poultry from Sanagan\u2019s, therefore, I called my mum and asked her advice about how best to cook it. It\u2019s so easy to dry out a pheasant in the oven. She heard the hesitation in my voice and suggested that, to be on the safe side, a pot roast might be the answer and gave me precise instructions.<\/p>\n

So I browned the whole pheasant briefly in a little olive oil and butter then chopped up some onions, carrots and celery and browned them in the mingled fats, deglazing the casserole with wine and vegetable stock. The bird went back in, with lots of thyme, some salt and pepper. Heavy lid set in place. Into a\u00a0medium oven for 90 minutes\u2026<\/p>\n

Oh the steamy perfection! The flesh was falling from the bones, succulent and perfumed with a hint of gaminess (the best that can be achieved in a country where hanging in the feather is forbidden), the carrots soft as little orange pillows, the onions and celery on the point of liquefaction, the juices rich and sweet. No potatoes, bread sauce or sand \u2013 and of course no feathers this time. No running round the garden either. And nothing left in the pot but delicate bones and happy memories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 There are few birds more handsome than a cock ring-necked pheasant in his autumn glory. Proudly plumed but spectacularly stupid,\u00a0they flaunt themselves before the guns. Once dead, however, gutted, plucked and trussed, they are nothing to write home about. I purchased one from that excellent butchery, Sanagan\u2019s Meat Locker in Kensington Market, and took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,101],"tags":[194,193],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=624"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":740,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions\/740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}