Method
1. Cut the pheasant breasts in half. You could cut them into three but I prefer them nice and chunky so you can really see that it is pheasant. There’s no need to salt the meat: the salt just washes off anyway. I prefer to let the seasoning come from the sauce.
2. Heat a heavy-based frying pan with a little oil. Once the pan’s very hot, add the pheasant pieces and seal them on all sides. You want to gently brown the pheasant, so there’s just a little colour – not too much – on all sides. It’s important to cook the pheasant quite quickly like this, so it stays nice and moist. At this stage, we’re cooking the pieces two thirds of the way through so it’s still a little pink inside. We’ll finish it off in the sauce later. Remove the pheasant from the pan and keep it somewhere warm.
3. In the same pan, cook the chopped shallot with the butter. Cook it until it’s soft but without any colour.
4. Add the brandy to the pan and deglaze the pan with the brandy, scraping up any cooking sediment. It may flame up. Flaming the brandy removes the alcohol and acidity from the brandy. Once the brandy has evaporated, add the mixed wild mushrooms. It’s your choice what kind of mushrooms you use for this. Availability of different varieties varies throughout the seasons.
5. Stir in the mushrooms for a minute or two, then add the Madeira.
6. Pour in the cream, and bring the liquid to the boil. Add the Knorr Chicken Stock Pot and stir in to dissolve. Return the pheasant to the pan. Reduce the liquid down so that the cream is infused with the wonderful flavour of the mushrooms, brandy, Madeira and Knorr Chicken Stock Pot.
7. To serve, remove the pheasant first, and arrange it on a dish. Spoon plenty of the sauce over the mushrooms, then garnish with the fresh parsley. Do you know what would be nice with it? Cabbage with diced root vegetables – maybe celeriac and carrot – and perhaps a bit of bacon in there. Serve it in the middle of the table and let people help themselves. That’s an informal, family-friendly way of serving dinner.
