Jean Claude’s pheasant breasts – reader’s recipe

This is a deliciously juicy dish says Fiona. The sausage meat/mushroom mixture prevents the pheasant from drying out and it is a lovely way to use pheasant breasts when a roast bird begins to pall.

Ingredients

4 pheasant breasts

8 (at least) slices of dry smoked streaky bacon (stretched with a rolling pin or blunt side of a knife)

250g best quality sausage meat

Handful of chestnut mushrooms (optional)

Method:

Start by laying out a piece of cling film. Then lay out the bacon slices in a row on the cling film.

Place two pheasant breasts end to end along the middle of the bacon slices (slightly overlap to create an even thickness).

Cover the pheasant breasts with the sausage meat (add chopped mushrooms now if you are using them). Then cover with the other two pheasant breasts.

Roll up the bacon with the cling film to wrap up the breasts to produce a ‘swiss roll effect’. Tighten the roll, and place in fridge to chill or straight into the freezer for later use.

When chilled, remove from cling film, wrap tightly in kitchen foil and roast for 40 minutes in a medium oven (180ºC).

Remove from oven and rest in the foil for five minutes. Serve by cutting vertically into four slices.

Tip: to preserve the shape you can rope it as you would a breast of lamb.

You’ll find more pheasant recipes here.