Stuffed Breast Of Pheasant En Croute Recipes

Steps:

• Heat the canola oil over medium heat in a large saute pan. Season the pheasant with salt and pepper and coat with the softened butter. Brown all sides of the pheasant until golden brown and remove to a utility platter. To the same pan, add the onion and garlic and saute until the onion becomes translucent. Deglaze the pan with the Marsala wine and add bay leaves and parsley. Lower the heat and return the pheasant to the pan. (Wash and dry the utility platter and keep handy for the cooked pheasant.) Cover and simmer until the pheasant is tender and juices in the thigh run clear when pierced, about 35 minutes. Remove the pheasant to the utility platter and allow to rest until cool enough to handle.
• Strain the braising juices into another pot and skin off any excess fat. Add balsamic vinegar and brown sauce and cook over medium heat until thickened.
• Pull pheasant meat from the bones and cut into 1-inch pieces, discarding bones. Remove sauce from heat. In a bowl fold pheasant meat with enough sauce to coat. Do not feel obligated to use all of the sauce. The mixture should not be soupy.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
• Roll out the pastry dough and, using an appropriately sized cereal bowl or small mixing bowl as a template, cut 4 rounds 8-inches in diameter.
• Spoon the pheasant mixture evenly into 4 individual ovenproof 6-inch bowls (onion soup bowls are ideal for this), and brush the edges of the bowls with egg. Top each with a circle of pastry, draping the crust over the rim. Brush the tops of the pastry with the egg wash and bake until golden, about 12 to 15 minutes.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• Roast the pepper over a flame until it turns black. Remove skin, seeds and stem, and dice the pepper into 1/4-inch squares.
• Mix the goat cheese, pine nuts and herbs in a bowl.
• Cut off the breasts from the pheasant, carefully removing skin and fat. Discard carcass. Cut a small pocket into the side of the breast from end to end. Stuff the pocket of each breast with stuffing mixture. Pull some breast meat over the pocket. Wrap each breast with four slices of bacon.
• Place the pheasant breasts on a rack in a roasting tray, and roast in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, turning them over once.
• Remove the breasts from the oven. Remove and discard the bacon and let the pheasant breasts stand for 5 minutes.
• Slice each breast into four medallions, using an angled cut. Place 4 medallions on each plate, and serve with a salad.

Steps:

• Season breast with salt and pepper.
• Sear well in a pan with butter and let cool.
• Mix Brie, shallots, garlic, tomato, onion, mushrooms and sage.
• Season to taste.
• Stuff ¼ of cheese mixture under the skin of each cooled breast.
• Wrap each with a slice of bacon.
• Wrap with puff pastry.
• Brush top with beaten egg.
• Bake at 425 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Steps:

• To prepare the stuffing: Melt the butter in a saute pan over low heat. Add the onion and celery and cook for 20 minutes, or until the onion is cooked through but not brown. Set aside. Put the crackers in a large bowl, add the egg, the cooked onion and celery, the sage, roasted corn, chicken stock, salt, and pepper and mix well. To stuff and roast the pheasant: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Season the pheasant cavity with some of the salt and pepper, then put the stuffing inside. Truss with skewers or tie with butcher's twine. Season the bird with the remaining salt and pepper. Lay the bacon over the breast. Place the pheasant on a metal roasting rack set inside a roasting pan and place on the middle rack of the oven. Roast for 25 minutes, basting the legs once or twice with the pan juices. After 25 minutes raise the temperature to 450 degrees and finish the bird for 10 minutes more, or until golden brown with an internal temperature of about 140 degrees near the thigh. To prepare the sauce: While the pheasant is roasting, puree the corn kernels in a food processor. You should have about 2 cups of pure. Place in a small saucepan with the habanero. Bring the juice to 200 degrees. Do not boil or the sauce will break. Add the lime juice and salt. To serve: Let the bird rest for 5 minutes before carving. Take the bacon off the breast and carve the bird, dividing the breast and thighs. Serve with the corn sauce and sauteed leeks.

Steps:

• Place the apples into a small saucepan with the water, thyme, sugar, and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the apples have softened and cooked down to a chunky applesauce, about 15 minutes. Remove the applesauce from the heat and stir in the breadcrumbs.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
• Prepare the pheasant breasts to be stuffed by cutting a pocket horizontally into each breast. Spoon the apple and bread crumb stuffing into each breast. Wrap each breast with two strips of bacon and place them into a baking dish with the chopped onion. Pour the chicken stock over the pheasant breasts and season with salt and pepper.
• Roast the pheasant breasts in the preheated oven until well done and the juices from the meat run clear, 30 to 35 minutes.
• Remove the breasts from the baking dish and cover with aluminum foil. Pour the juices from the baking dish into a small saucepan with the cider vinegar and prunes; bring to a boil over high heat. Stir in the cream and continue to boil until thickened.
• Slice the breasts diagonally and fan out on the serving platter, spoon the prune sauce over the slices to serve.

Steps:

• Separate legs and thighs from each bird. Remove and reserve skin, then cut meat away from the bones, being careful to remove small bones and gristle. Set aside.
• Skin, then bone the breasts. The procedure is exactly the same as for a chicken: With the bird lying on its back, use a sharp knife to make a deep incision just beside the breast bone. Then pull the meat - called the supreme - away from the carcass. Repeat the procedure for the other breast, and for remaining pheasant. On the inner side of each breast there will be a small fillet. Remove the stringy nerve from each of them. Using a broad knife blade, pound the small fillets slightly to flatten and set aside.
• Cut deep pockets into each of the supremes for stuffing, taking care not to pierce all the way through. Set aside.
• Use skin, carcass, heart, gizzard and wings to prepare a stock, as one would prepare chicken stock.
• Rinse caul fat under cold water for several minutes, then drain well.
• Prepare the stuffing. Put dark meat from legs and thighs through a meat grinder, or grind in a food processor. Add egg whites, season with salt, pepper and paprika, and pass through a fine mesh sieve, using a stiff plastic scraper, or, if available, use the fine mesh sieve attachment of an electric mixer. Combine meat and egg mixture with the creme fraiche in a mixing bowl and whip with an electric beater for several minutes, or until the mixture is very elastic.
• Saute pheasant livers in butter for about two minutes.
• Open each supreme, carefully add stuffing and in the center of each place half of a sauteed liver. Close supremes so that no stuffing seeps out, and cover the opening with the flattened fillets from Step 2. Wrap each stuffed supreme in a single layer of caul fat. This can be done several hours ahead, then refrigerated. Remove pheasant from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before cooking.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Salt and pepper each supreme, then brown on both sides in butter. Place su-premes in a shallow, buttered pan, cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. While pheasant is cooking, prepare sauce and figs.
• To serve, cut each packet on the bias into five or six thin slices, arrange on warm plates and serve with shallot and wildmushroom sauce. The caul fat should have cooked away, and so need not be removed for serving.