Saturday 21 February 2015

Pheasant breasts and PSB

My recently-harvested PSB was served yesterday as an accompaniment to a meal based on a pack of Pheasant breasts bought from the Farmers' Market.


Pheasant is really nice meat - a bit like a rather richer version of chicken, but not "gamey". Since it comes from a wild bird, it can be a bit dry, simply because it is not very fatty, so it benefits from being cooked in a sauce.


I made a sauce from shallots, mushrooms and cream (Elmlea actually), with a splash of Dry Sherry to liven it up. Here are some of my ingredients, during preparation:


The orange-coloured stuff is Blue Shropshire cheese, which I put in a sauce for the Broccoli.

To give it a full description, this is what the meal consisted of:
Pheasant breasts in mushroom cream sauce
Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Blue Shropshire cheese sauce
Baby new potatoes
I served it with a bottle of  Rosé wine - one of the few remaining from our membership of the now-defunct Wineshare wine club.

Here are the Pheasant breasts cooking in the shallot and mushroom sauce...


Yes, that is a lot of meat. The pack had 6 breasts in it, but we only managed to eat 2 each.

This is the Shropshire Blue cheese sauce for the Broccoli... I used the roux method: melt some butter; add some flour; cook for a minute; add milk in small quantities, stirring constantly until smooth; add the cheese and stir again. Add more milk if required to achieve the right (thick and glossy) consistency.


And the Broccoli covered in the sauce... Fresh PSB like this only needs literally a minute or two of cooking. (BTW: this sauce was absolutely wonderful!)


Here it is, all plated-up:


For me, the star of the show was the PSB (of course). Covered as it was in thick, creamy cheese sauce it would be hard to beat!

[Note: boiled / steamed PSB goes cold very quickly. My idea of covering it in cheese sauce was really a way of counteracting this, and it worked really well. I strongly recommend it.]

10 comments:

  1. It looks delicious. I'm envious of your psb and I really must give pheasant a go.

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  2. I feel like cooking a similar meal but it'll have to be with chicken breasts as pheasant isn't available here. The cheese sauce looks lovely!

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  3. I love broccoli in cheese sauce. It is oh so good. I've never tried it with a blue cheese though. I usually use cheddar. I ought to try it as the blue cheeses are so good for you.

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  4. Lovely idea with the cheese sauce - I'd never considered blue cheese either - must give that a try. I would have to use just the plain old broccoli from the market so I'm sure it would be nowhere near as good.

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  5. Psb looks amazing and touch of genius with the cheese sauce

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  6. "the star of the show was the PSB (of course). Covered as it was in thick, creamy cheese sauce it would be hard to beat!"

    Couldn't agree more - looks lovely.

    All the best Jan

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  7. Good lord that cheesy sauce looks incredible. What a wonderful meal.

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