Beer Can Pheasant Recipe - Barbecued Pheasant | Hank Shaw (2024)

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Beer Can Pheasant Recipe - Barbecued Pheasant | Hank Shaw? ›

Mix the salt, pepper, and thyme in a bowl and sprinkle it over the pheasant. Fill the Red Bull can halfway with beer; it doesn't matter what kind. Drink the rest of the beer. Put the can inside the pheasants' cavity and place the pheasants on the cool side of the grill.

Game that freezes well, such as rabbit and pheasant, are also great choices. The smoke of the barbecue adds extra flavour to wild meat, making it incredibly moreish – so long as you follow a few simple steps.

Along with whole birds, our butchers prepare boned and stuffed pheasants for easy cooking and carving. We recommend roasting these in oil or fat for one hour at 180ºC. Specific cooking instructions for our three-bird roasts, ballotines and roulades can be found on our cooking guidance page.

Brown the pheasant all over in hot dripping then put in a casserole dish with onions, carrot & celery. Add chicken or game stock, put the lid on and braise in a medium oven for at least 2 hours. Cooked like that it will never be dry but it will be tender, moist and flavoursome.

I personally like a little bit of the natural flavor, so I only soak for 12 hours before cooking. Leave as much of the skin on the meat as possible: Pheasants typically have very little fat on them, especially around the breast meat, so they can dry out quickly during cooking.

Cook until golden brown and no longer pink inside (roughly 8 minutes per side). Remove pheasant from skillet and set aside. Cook game meat thoroughly to an internal temperature of 165°F.

Place the pheasant in a roasting tin and cook in the centre of the oven for 50 minutes. Baste frequently during cooking. Cook thoroughly until the juices run clear when pierced with a fork and there is no pink meat. Do not reheat once cooled.

Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour, then cover with aluminum foil and continue baking until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh, near the bone, reads 180 degrees F (82 degrees C), about 1 hour more. Baste pheasant with pan juices every 30 minutes during baking.

The bird can be roasted, smoked, fried or cooked in a slow cooker. Popular seasonings choices for pheasant include rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper and soy sauce.

What do you soak pheasant in? ›

And, because quail is smaller than chicken, it's easier to overcook. Brining -- the process of soaking meat in a saltwater solution -- provides a good deal of protection against the undesirable effects of overcooking. Also, like marinating, brining gives you an opportunity to impart extra flavor into the meat.

When grilling or roasting thighs, soaking them in your favorite marinade for a few hours beforehand is a great way to both tenderize the exterior and imbue with flavor. Should you wish to fry your legs, letting them sit in buttermilk a couple hours beforehand will also tenderize the exterior.

Pheasant can be prepared in many ways, but roasting and grilling are the most popular cooking methods.

Do not be alarmed if the thigh meat is pink. As long as the internal temperature is at least 154° and the meat is not translucent, the thighs will be perfectly safe to eat and much tastier than if overcooked! Farm-raised or wild pheasant can be treated more as a red meat rather than a white meat in the kitchen.

Roberts said prior to cooking the bird, the gamey taste can be pulled out by soaking it in milk and the blood can also be extracted. "I normally soak them (pheasant) overnight in a salt water ... it pulls the blood out," Roberts said.

Light and Mild: Pheasant

Pheasant is known for its light-colored breast meat—much like chicken—and its mild flavor is ideal for introducing new and non-hunters to wild game. Still, pheasants are easy to overcook. One complaint I hear often is that pheasant meat can be dry and tough.

Breast and thigh muscles in both female and male pheasants contained higher protein content and lower fat content compared to broiler meat. The calcium content in pheasant meat was lower whereas the phosphorus and magnesium contents were higher compared to broiler meat.

The Facts About Pheasant Meat

So what makes pheasant a healthy meat? Well, it's low in fat while being high in protein. It's also full of minerals such as iron, zinc and selenium. And for those who don't like fat, know this: pheasant has less fat than duck and chicken.

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Especially for pen-raised pheasants, it's easy to summarize as “tastes like chicken,” though wild roosters, especially older ones, will offer more unique flavors from years of consuming an eclectic diet of seeds, corn, greens, bugs, and likely much more.