Mike and Jake are tired of duck hunting. Or rather, I think Mike is tired of corralling an energetic three year old lab so that he can duck hunt. They’ve taken up pheasant hunting as an option where Jake gets to run and run and run and Mike doesn’t have to get up at o-dark-thirty. I like it too as I don’t have to wake up to say “love you, have fun, be safe” long before I’d normally be awake.
They got their first pheasant yesterday and we spent the last 24 hours pondering what to do with it. For various reasons, mostly relating to my lack of desire to heat water and pluck it, Mike skinned it and pieced it out. After poking through the recipe porn collection I settled on making a version of a recipe in one of our game cookbooks. It was supposed to be based on mushrooms and white wine and served over rice, but that wasn’t in the cards around here tonight.
Instead, I sauteed some onions in olive oil while Mike deboned the pheasant. Then I browned the meat, added some fresh sage, parsley and garlic, tipped in a dash of Washington cabernet, poured in a pint of homemade tomato sauce and let it simmer for 45 minutes while we made fresh fettucini. I also added a bit of dried tarragon and marjoram for a deeper flavor.
When I was a child I always preferred my noodles plain with just butter, parmesan and salt. As a grown up I’ve learned to appreciate sauce (particularly cream sauces) but every once in a while I revert to being ten again. Tonight was one of those nights. I put my portion of pheasant in a small glass bowl and buttered my noodles in another with just a touch of butter and parmesan. In the end I added just a touch of the tomato broth to my noodles because the flavor was so divine.
Mike doesn’t have my issues with sauce and noodles and topped his fettucini with broth and pheasant alike.
We both decided it was something we would eat again. Although next time I’d cook the pheasant a bit longer to let it finish stewing. And that fettucini? The best pasta I’ve ever made. I’m trying to commit the feel of the dough to memory so that I can replicate it next time pasta night rolls around.
*****
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Wow! That looks fantastic!
Goodness gracious! How fabulous it looks. I almost said “How fabulous it smells” since it seems so…immediate and tangible.
Yum. Good thing I read this until after dinner – it would’ve been hard to eat what I cooked. The pictures are so amazing, I can almost taste it!