Pheasant Confit: Delicious Juicy Goodness

I imagine that if you took one of your ancient relatives (just a couple hundred years back) and brought them to the present day, and then showed them the inside of your refrigerator, they’d probably scratch their head in bewilderment.

“Why?” you would ask them.  They would point to the bottles of pickles and jellies, cured sausages and maybe that package of bacon, and then turn to you and ask, in the same tone, “Why?”

A lot of the stuff we cook with (and don’t necessarily think about) has a specific reason for being the way it is. That reason almost always boils down to preservation, or namely the lack of a proper method. – at least before the advent of refrigeration, and that’s really a rather recent accomplishment.

This week we cover pheasant confit (not the usual duck or goose). Confit is one of those old-school methods of preserving food, and it’s unique in that it really uses two methods. The first is brining, which is a method of increasing the amount of salt in a product, thereby making it less hospitable for bacteria. The second part of a confit is the storage – in the fat it was cooked in. The procedure originated in France, and like a lot of other unique foods, was originally designed to dramatically increase the shelf life of a product.

We’ve grown so accustomed to these items as staples that we continue to practice the same techniques developed hundreds of years ago, but now simply for the development of their flavors. That great flavor of a ruben, with the smoked meat and sauerkraut, is almost entirely thanks to old preservation techniques.

So enjoy your confit, and take a moment to thank those old French chaps for not having a fridge of their own.

-Chef Savage

Pheasant Confit

6ea         Pheasant Legs
16c       Rendered Duck Fat

Brine
2ea       Oranges (cut into 8 pieces)
2ea       Lemons (cut into 8 pieces)
½ c       Kosher Salt
½ c       Sugar
1c       Orange Juice
10       Garlic Cloves
2       Bay Leaves
1oz       Fresh Thyme
1oz       Fresh Rosemary
1oz         Fresh Parsley
6       Black Peppercorns
1gal       Water


Procedure
Place all ingredients for brine in an 8qt sauce pan and bring to a simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove from flame and cool. Once brine is cool, pour into a 2 gallon container and place legs into the brine and let set for 12 hours covered in the refrigerator. If running short on time you do not have to simmer the brine as we demonstrated.
Pour brine through a colander and discard liquid. Place pheasant legs in a roasting pan and cover with some of the remaining mixture from the colander. Melt the fat and pour over the duck.
Place pan in a 250 degree oven for 4to6 hours or until the meat falls of the bones. Start with 4 hours and check in 30 minute increments. Cool and store in duck fat. (You may leave it in the fridge for several weeks; just make sure the legs are covered completely in fat)

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No Double-Boiler Required!

One of my biggest pet peeves with cooking – or at least, with other people's cooking – is a lack of flexibility. At work, that mostly comes about from inflexible diners and employees with no work availability, but that’s not what we’re talking about... I’m talking about flexibility with recipes. A lot of recipes are really strict and rigid, requiring items in strange amounts like “two cups plus a teaspoon of sugar” or “three and a half eggs.” Really? A half egg? From what, a half chicken?!? The great thing about most recipes is that you really can fudge the amounts; your sauce will be just the same without that extra teaspoon, and go ahead and use the whole egg. You’re not gonna kill anyone. But it’s not just amounts, it’s also in the procedure. So many recipes say “bake at 392 degrees for exactly 21.2 minutes” or such nonsense. Sure, a temperature range is great and all, but ovens vary, and my roast chicken in one oven may be done a lot faster than another. The recipe should focus more on the actual procedure, or what it is you’re looking for – golden brown crust, firm center, a certain internal temperature so that you don’t serve raw chicken. Then you might actually kill somebody!

Hollandaise is like that. There’s a half dozen ways of making it; I’ve seen it made in a bowl over a double boiler, over a fryer, in a blender… hell, I bet you could do it in front of a screaming hot oven, but you’d probably cook yourself as well.
But the reason the recipe is flexible, and that people can make it different ways and still come out with the same sauce – that’s because they understand what’s going on. Heat plus eggs equals coagulation, and when you add melted butter, you get the thick sauce you want.
So do the recipe however you want, and as long as you understand what’s happening, and more importantly, why, you can do anything!

- Chef Savage

Hollandaise Sauce

2 ea           Egg Yolks
1oz           Lemon Juice
1oz           White Wine
1oz           Worcestershire Sauce
2 shakes       Tabasco Sauce
½-3/4#       Clarified Butter
Pinch           Salt & Pepper

PROCEDURE

Melt butter in microwave in 20-second intervals till butter reaches 180 degrees. Be careful butter may boil over and could burn.
Place egg, lemon, wine, worcestershire and tabasco in blender. Blend on medium speed for 30 seconds. Slowly add butter till desired thickness. Finish with salt and pepper.

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“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” ~Confucius

Maybe the saying shouldn’t be that we make it complicated, but that we think it is. Gourmet food is in the eye of the beholder, whether from the premium ingredients within or the intricate processes required to make it. But just because gourmet food looks more complicated doesn’t mean it’s unapproachable for the average cook at home.

As a chef, the main task in my hands is the pairing of flavors, plain and simple: What goes well with what? That’s the question I ask myself, every day. Take a few simple, strong flavors, blend them together, you’ve got a dish. Use natural, fresh ingredients, you have a better dish.

The physical process, the manipulation of proteins and vegetables – that can look complicated. But transforming them from their rough, raw states into things of beauty is easier than you think, and it’ll take your better dish to a fantastic one.

Whenever I sit down to create a new recipe, the focus is flavor. When I created this Colorado Lamb dish last summer, the key idea in my mind was building the other flavors around the lamb. The execution of the dish might be complicated, but the flavors? Not by a long shot. The dish is dominated by simple, core flavor concepts: fruit (from the fresh apple and dried apricot), herbal (from the crushed mint in the filling) and the raw, natural gaminess of the lamb (the best part). These three simple flavors drive the entire affair.

Once you knock out the flavors of your dish, what’s left? The physical preparation? …and that’s the easy part. Don’t let the look of a rack of lamb scare you off: anyone can do it. Not only that, you can do it in no time at all; half an hour, tops. You’ll have an amazing meal to impress friends and family, and you’ll see how simple gourmet cooking really is.

And remember, in addition to trying this for yourself in your own kitchen, I will be offering this dish in The Cliff House dining room this weekend only! Utter the “secret phrase” at the end of this episode for an exculsive 15% discount only for viewers of “The Savage Kitchen”.

And if you love the dish, or if you have any questions, don’t forget to comment and most importantly: please, share it! Also, you can subscribe to our RSS feed for our latest videos, posts, and recipes.

Colorado Lamb

• Stuffed with Apricots, Fuji Apple and Fresh Mint
• Rissolée potatoes, Sautéed Spinach
• Balsamic reduction
• Serves 4

Ingredients

• 2 8 Bone Frenched racks of lamb
• 1lb Dried apricots
• 2ea Fuji apples
• 10 Mint leaves
• 2ea Russet potatoes
• 2lb Fresh spinach
• 4c Balsamic vinegar
• 1/2c Sugar
• Salt and pepper

Procedure: Lamb

• Clean silver skin from lamb and cut into 4 bone racks. Season the lamb with salt & pepper. Sear in skillet and let cool.
• In a food processor blend apricot, peeled and cored apple with mint. Place in a piping bag.
• Take cooled lamb and cut a slit through the center of the loin. Take piping bag and place the tip into the slit in the lamb and fill with stuffing. Don’t over stuff because when you finish cooking the lamb the meat will shrink and squeeze out the stuffing.
• Wrap bones with aluminum foil to keep from burning.
• Cook lamb in a 350 degree over for 10 to 12 minutes.

Rissolée Potatoes

• Peel potatoes. Use a Parisienne scoop to shape the potatoes into small balls.
• Simmer the potatoes in salted water until the potatoes are tender but not fully cooked.
• Drain the potatoes.
• Place the potatoes in a sauté pan and sauté with butter over high heat till potatoes turn golden brown.
• Season the potatoes with salt and pepper.

Sautéed Spinach

In a large sauté pan cook spinach in butter till wilted. Season with salt and pepper.

Balsamic Reduction

• Place Vinegar and sugar in a small sauce pan and cook over low heat till small bubbles appear about 15 to 20 minutes.
• Pull from heat and place in small soup cup till needed.

Plating

Place spinach in center of plate. Cut lamb in half and place over spinach, locking bones together. Place potatoes around the outside of plate. Drizzle Reduction over the lamb.

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