One of the oldest Spanish food preservation techniques makes a glorious comeback to become the ultimate tupperware recipe. A delicious and tender pheasant with a delicate pickle aftertaste that will make your mouth water.
No joking here. This is a serious dish to take to the office. Just imagine for a second your work colleagues warming up their ready-meal pasta with tomato sauce or an overcooked couscous salad. And whilst they do that, imagine your beautiful and exquisite pheasant escabeche, perfectly aromatic and making them wonder why in earth life is so cruel.
It’s no secret how much I like escabeches. I’ve already talked about it here and here. However, this one is one of my favourite ones, perhaps because there’s nothing special to it. This is just the same classic escabeche that we could also do with partridge, quail or even chicken. Today, we just happened to have a beautiful wild pheasant that we bought from one of our favourite farmers at Broadway Market. So what a better use for it than to cook it in escabeche!
INGREDIENTS
- 600 g Pheasant
- 80 g White Onion
- 80 g Carrots
- 250 g Baby potatoes
- 5 cloves Garlic
- 1 tbsp Pimenton - Sweet
- 1 leave Bay leaves
- 2 twigs Fresh thyme
- 1 tbsp Black pepper - Whole peppercorns
- 1 tbsp Salt - Flakes
- 300 ml Extra virgin olive oil
- 150 ml Jerez vinegar
- 150 ml Red wine
METHOD
- Wash the potatoes with their skin. Boil them in salted water for approximate 20 minutes. When cooked, take them off the heat and let them cool down before peeling them. Reserve.
- Ideally, your pheasant is already skinned and gutted. In any case, make sure there aren’t any feathers left. If you find any, burn them with a torch or even with a lighter. Butcher the bird in big pieces. I usually separate the thighs and then separate the breast in two pieces. Season it well with salt.
- Use a pot which is as small as you can but big enough to lay down all the pheasant bits at the bottom. Heat some olive oil and brown the meat. Take out and reserve aside.
- Sweat the onions, the carrots and the garlic cloves in the same oil under a medium-low heat.
- After 10 minutes, add the pimentón and stir well. Lay the meat down at the bottom of the pot, add the bay leaves, the thyme, the peppercorns and the potatoes.
- Pour in the red wine, then the rest of the oil and then the vinegar. Slow cook for 60 to 80 minutes or until the pheasant is very soft.
Like all the escabeches, the flavour gets better if you let it rest overnight.
