Five Alarm Pheasant

Although we (mostly Kara) got the kitchen to a usable state within days of moving into our new house in Dallas, it wasn’t till last night that I finally had time to cook something new. While looking for duck, which is very hard to find here, I stumbled across pheasant, which I don’t recall ever seeing in LA but is readily available at our closest market now. It also reminds me of a wooden statue of the bird that stood near the dinner table at my grandparents’ ranch in Glen Rose, so this Southern treatment of it felt especially fitting.

Roasted Pheasant with Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding and Pan Gravy

Stuffed with aromatics and creole seasonings, the star of the dish came out perfectly cooked with crisp, golden skin, moist dark meat and tender white meat- similar to a nice roasted chicken, but a bit richer. The bread pudding is essentially like Thanksgiving stuffing, only rather than the traditional cornbread and poultry seasoning type flavors, it's made with white bread, more creole seasonings, mushrooms and onions sautéed in beer, and an interesting hit of molasses. The whole dish is topped with a pan gravy made with fresh orange juice and Rioja wine.

It was a fun first culinary exploration for Texas, although I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that I learned the hard way why no one likes to oven-roast at 500º when the weather is close to triple digits even at night. At least we know the smoke alarms and the A/C are in tip top shape. Back to bug spray and barbecue for now I guess.