New Year New Cuts: Game Birds

Game often keeps a strange position in Britain’s national consciousness – often associated with overpowering flavour, expense (not to say poshness), and a sense of a food that’s strange and difficult, to be cooked by someone else. Well, we’d like to present a counter narrative.

In many ways Game birds are a dietician and environmentalist’s dream – wild birds that fly around all day are far leaner and healthier than domesticated birds. They have supremely good welfare for the same reasons – living wild and free before the day a random person in full tweed plucks it out of the sky. They are sustainable and part of the eco system, and finally they delicious and relatively inexpensive. Perhaps the most perfect January food!

There are societal reasons too numerous to go in to here explaining why game birds have not been a mainstay of Britain’s plates, including but not limited to laws surrounding hunting rights that date back to the eleventh century. Be that as it may it mainly seems that a lack of familiarity scares people off cooking game.

The most common misapprehension regarding game is that it will be too strong or too gamey. Whilst long hung gamey birds certainly exist and Grouse and some wild ducks like Widegon can have a slightly overwhelming taste most game birds, unless specially hung, are quite mild. Pheasant tastes more or less like a slightly nutty, very flavourful chicken, partridge has a beautiful and delicate flavour whilst mallard is very much a leaner, somewhat darker version of a farmed duck. Pigeon arguably has the most pronounced flavour but equally that means it can stand up to rich sauces and works very well with big, spicy flavours.

At Flock & Herd we’re always happy to joint birds, especially pheasants which can make them easier to cook. Where you might use chicken breast it’s worth giving a pheasant breast a go, whether that’s a pie, a salad or even a pheasant Kyiv!