Rabbit action

I have not done a rabbit terrine since cooking school, so I decided to try another one.
This was somewhat frustrating for me for some reason. I think the main reason was I kind of just wanted to do a quick terrine, but with rabbit it's best to make a farce, wrap it in the loin and skin and poach it, so it's a bit more of a production.
I started out De-boning the rabbit which was fairly easy as I have done this before. The farce as well was pretty simple (lemon verbena, orange rind, pork fat, rabbit meat and fat, seasoning, all grind-ed up).
The hard part came getting the farce into a tight meat log (as sean calls it), he had to help me several times with that, I just couldn't seem to get it quite tight enough. Because it took me so long, and I was over frustrated I left it over night and decided to come back to it the next day.














I was feeling better about it and pounded out the rabbit terrine pretty quick at this point. I wrapped the farce in the loin and skin, wrapped it in cheesecloth (tightly) and poached it in rabbit stock and pork stock.














I brought the terrine up to 147 degrees and let it cool completely in the liquid, the result was pretty good. Next time I will be adding a bit more seasoning and a bit more lemon verbena.
All and all good learning day(s).

A Study of Pheasant (part 2)

Welcome back to the second installment of "A study of pheasant"

In this one I wanted to showcase the fruit flavors a little more and focus less on richness. With that being said, I still poached the ballontines in xvoo. So, there is a little fat there to savor.

I used the leg this time as a farce meat for the center of the ballontine and added a gooseberry gastrique that Shannon made the other day. Also, I did an apricot gastrique to be the real acidic component of the dish. For one more fruit component, I did two slices of grilled peach. The two fruits and the berries are all in season right now and grown within a 15km radius. How could I not want to showcase those flavors.

With all that fruit going on I needed to bring some more richness to the dish in order to mellow out the acidity and help restore the subtle flavors of the pheasant. So after poaching the pheasant in xvoo, I used that oil to make a mayo with a touch of truffle oil, some grainy dijon and lemon juice. Also, the jus made from all the carcass and trim of the birds brought the earth tonal flavors that give a comfort to a dish.

The dish definitely needed some texture and some starch components on the plate. Since I already had a lot going on I decided to make the starch crispy and kill two birds. Actually it was 8 birds, but that's neither here nor there. Grated, raw Yukon Gold potatoes, with all their juice squeezed out. Then a little bit seasoning and a few herbs. Into the pan to fry all crispy like. Success.

The plate was garnished with some bush basil for freshness and of course it's affinity for stone fruits. I also garnished with a light sprinkling of smoked sea salt, because it's delicious.

People really seemed to go for this one. We sold out in no time at all. I love that people will enjoy this kind of food in the summer here. Now, we just need to get some more of the locals eating like this on a more year round basis and we'll really be in business then.

Sean Peltier

A Study of Pheasant

So, I was going through the restaurant inventory the other day looking for something to do for my daily lunch feature when I came across four lonely pheasant.

I happen to like pheasant, I think it's delicious and I don't know to many people who would disagree. So, pheasant it is.

Conundrum. How am I to take four birds and turn them into at least, oh say, 12-16 portions for a feature. Well, let me tell you.

The plan. De-bone the birds along the spine so as to leave all the usable skin in tact. I want to do this so that I can later wrap the breast meat back up inside the skin in the lovely phallus object we in the french schooled cooking world refer to as a Ballontine. However I think that what should be done in stead of the traditional way of braising it in a stock from the bones is to instead confit it in duck fat.
Why not? Oh and after that I figured that a little bit of a cold smoke would do it some good as well.
Once all that is out of the way, all that is left to do is sear the skin so that it has a little bit more sex appeal that your average pasty white phallus.

This whole confiting thing has two positive outcomes: Firstly; It is bound to impart all sorts of wonderful flavors and as long as I don't cook it to a temperature greater than 136ish degrees I will have a wonderfully moist breast as well. Secondly; I now have beautiful bones with which to make a roasted pheasant jus with. Which I did.

This leaves only the well used legs of the Pheasant. There is not a lot of meat on them bones and what meat there is is riddled with tendons that no one would enjoy chewing on, braised or not. So what should I do. Think that grinding the meat would be the best possible solution. Now, more often than not, the farce meat made from the legs would be run through the center of the ballontine. However, I had something else in mind. Unfortunately Pheasant eggs are not so easy to procure. Or, not at least without risking getting beaked in the eye while trying to poach from a nest of a very overprotective parental unit on some near by walking path. So, in this case, a noble chicken egg will have to suffice. Scotched eggs!A great treat that has some how fallen along the wayside in favor of some less labor intensive egg dishes. Seeing as I am being paid by the hour, bring on the labor intensiveness.
What we do here is wrap the pheasant thigh farce around a soft boiled egg,
bread it
and then deep fry it. Ideally what you get is a crispy, meaty outer layer with a beautifully cooked egg with a runny yolk.

After all this nothing is left to do but pair it with other foods to make a proper meal out of it. To be perfectly honest, once you've gone to all this trouble, pairing anything with it would do the trick. I did however, spend a lot of time on all this so why not take some nice garnishes along for the ride.

For the scotched egg; truffled potato puree, roasted pheasant jus.
And for the ballontine; strawberry gastrique, fresh strawberries, chervil and my favorite heart stopper, duck fat mayo(made from the confit fat which the ballontine was cooked).

As they say, "there are many ways to skin a cat" or maybe more fitting would be Mr. Scrooge "a cooked goose". There are a lot of ways to cook a pheasant, I hope you like the way I cooked mine.

Sean Peltier.