Pan fried breast of pheasant, sweet apple and prune compote, a rillette from the leg, calvados cream Recipe

By April 9, 2013
Published:- Yield: 4 Servings
Courtesy of The Rose and Crown at Romaldkirk, County Durham
Ingredients
- 2 pheasant oven ready
- 50 g demerara sugar
- 100 g lard
- 20ml cider
- 2 cloves garlic
- 50 g Butter
- 2 bay leaf
- 10 ml sunflower oil
- 1 sprig thyme
- 1 shallots chopped
- 2 apples (eating)
- 50 ml cider
- 100 g prunes cooked
- 25 ml Calvados
- 50 g Butter
- 250 ml whipping cream
Instructions
- Take the legs off the pheasants, put in a casserole dish with the lard, garlic, bay and thyme; cover and cook in a very slow oven 170c for 2 hours until cooked.
- Cool, remove the meat from the legs and pulse gently in a food processor with some of the melted lard until forming into a ‘sloppy’ pate. Season well and put into a bowl and refrigerate.
- Peel and dice the apples; place in a non stick pan with the butter and sugar and sweat gently for 10 minutes until the apple is softening; add the prunes and cider and cook gently until the cider is reduced and the mixture goes to a ‘chutney’ consistency.
- Remove the breasts from the pheasant; heat a frying pan with the butter and oil and sauté the pheasant breasts skin side down for 5 minutes; turn and cook slowly for 10 minutes until cooked; remove from pan, season with salt and keep warm. Add the shallot and cider and reduce by half; add the cream and reduce further; add the Calvados and season.
- Put some compote on each plate with a breast; scoop a teaspoon of the rillette and place on each breast; drizzle some sauce on the plate and serve.