New Year's Day Lunch 2020
A ‘grown-up’ meal for four. Well - three grown-ups and me.
Mum was still with us after celebrating Christmas, the end of a '“bumpy year”* and the start of 2020. She is most fond of pheasant and this recipe was always planned in her honour as my first cooking foray of the new year. A treasured neighbour joined us after confirming that her invitations to family and friends elsewhere had petered out.
Not content with ‘meat and two veg’ I decided to augment with a mushroom sauce from this recipe and a luscious parsnip purée from another pheasant dish.
The pheasant legs are cured for a while before cooking slowly as a confit. The kitchen atmosphere becomes heavy with meaty, garlicky, herby, fatty notes and salivary glands and digestive juices prepare for action.
I’m still surprised by the generous amount of meat which comes from a brace of pheasant’s legs.
Layers of meat, onion and herb mix disappear between those of potatoes but as soon as this ‘side’ is dished up and tasted it becomes deliciously obvious that any little trouble making it is oh so worthwhile.
More indulgence here with the Madeira-rich sauce. I soaked dried shiitake mushrooms for the liquor. They retained a meaty chewiness while chestnut mushrooms softened more in the pan.
Just a stick blender for the purée. It turned out silky enough to pass muster on Masterchef - maybe even the pro version!
The red cabbage recipe goes for a mingling of sweet and sour. Onions don’t feature. Which is good. I’m sure they would upset the balance of flavours here.
Two pheasant crowns remain for cooking just before serving. I almost did these justice. Although rested for a good while, I had taken them a little too far in the pan and the meat had more resistance than most would like. Maybe if I had paying guests I’d be more careful. Nope. I’ll stubbornly carry on serving the occasional mistake for free.
Kitchen strip lights have leeched out some of the visual appeal of these plates. No matter. This was not quite the bird with all the trimmings which had seen us through Christmas Day but every element made a flavour statement and combined to usher in new year cooking and eating with a pheasant fanfare.
Fruit salad helped to push back the richness of our main course and perhaps fool us into thinking we might even be on a healthy eating kick. Any suggestion in that direction was countered by a scoop of indulgent toasted almond ice cream.
Our sons flew the nest some years ago but we still welcome their return with their delightful partners at any time. Their festive visit was already over but they had left us with lovely, newly-made memories and in blissful ignorance of the existence of my reserve stash of petits fours. These rum truffles, pear jellies, whisky and ginger truffles, confit clementines and peanut butter truffles were a perfectly adequate quintet to accompany our coffees.
Meals will be less involved and not quite so rich for a few weeks ahead now. I will happily go for more simple ideas but we have already set dates for dinner with friends. Then 2020 will again see me taking time and making effort to offer something slightly fancy but hopefully crowd-pleasing from the kitchen. Still with no charge attached - until further notice.
Happy New Year, everyone!
*A twelvemonth steaming crock of shit (translation from the Queen’s Christmas address to the nation)