The Outdoors

By Scott Rall, Outdoors Columnist

I spent part of the day today rounding up a few pheasants from some friends to add to mine. I am preparing my donation to the Mulligan Stew Feed hosted by the Round Lake Sportsman’s Club this weekend at Round Lake Vineyards.

I just smile when I hear people tell me that they won’t eat any wild game. Each person has their one description of what “too gamey” tastes like. I eat all kinds of wild game but I do have to say that pheasant is one of my very favorites.

I use this same recipe for morning doves with a few alterations. I call this dish heart attack pheasant because there is not a single ingredient that most health food nuts wouldn’t think is terminal for you.

Start by deboning your birds. I do not use the legs, but cut each pheasant breast into four-five pieces and remove the thigh meat into two individual pieces. I soak the meat in a salt water brine for about 15 minutes and then drain with a colander.

Coat in flour seasoned with course ground pepper. Add about ¼ pound stick of butter (I really prefer butter but you can use margarine) to a large frying pan. Brown over medium heat. Meat does not have to be cooked through. Remove the browned pieces and place in a glass baking dish. Every other pan or so I add a few slices of onion and caramelize them.

Layer the meat and onions into the dish. When all of the meat is browned, this could take another few sticks of butter by the way, add a large container of sour cream to the frying pan. Take your implement and use it to scrape up all the pan frying’s into your sour cream gravy. Now is the time to estimate how much of the sauce you will need to cover all of the meat in the glass baking dish. I add milk to the sour cream to ensure when I pour it over the pheasant and onions they are completely covered. I then take a few complete slices of onion and lay them over the top. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for an hour. Check occasionally to ensure the dish is not baking dry. Add milk as necessary to keep the meat covered.

Serve this to all the folks who don’t like wild game and see what percentage of them come back for seconds. 100% is the normal number. You do need to tell the guests to watch for some pellets as they do show up once in a while.

I do the same thing with doves, except I brown the whole breast without deboning. You can wrap the doves in bacon to add some additional great flavor and about 2,000 extra calories. This is my favorite pheasant recipe.

The other great thing about this method is that it might actually taste better as a leftover the next day if you are successful in keeping any until the next day.

My second favorite pheasant method starts out the same but instead of frying, after a 15-minute salt bath, is to coat them in your favorite seasoned flour and then deep fat fry them. I have every sauce sold by Buffalo Wild Wings so you can toss them in about 15 different sauces and have your very own pheasant wing buffet.

The key to success is the salt bath soak. I have no idea what it actually does, but the coatings stick way better and you get a crispy outside and a moist inside. Most coatings without a salt bath end up in the bottom of the fryer and the meal seems oil soaked.

You can check out this method with your own pheasant and if you don’t happen to have a pheasant this would be a great time to get yourself a pheasant license for next year and then enjoy our public lands until you get a few of them in your game bag. I do manage to get flour pretty much all over the kitchen, but the clean up is worth my next serving of heart attack pheasant.

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If you have any questions, reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com.