A glutton's guide to celebrating the birth of our saviour

Through careful wrangling and candid moaning, I managed to delay the usual familial drudgery until boxing day this year so was able to spend Christmas Day at my flat with company of my choosing. I had always been looking forward to throwing a long, leisurely and drawn out affair with excess firmly set at it's fattened heart and this was the opportunity.
Here is the course list of what I served to those lucky souls:

1. Port & Chicken Liver Pate with Bruschetta (see 22/12/08 post for recipe)
   
2. Crab & Red Bream Bouillabaisse
3. Hen Pheasant Coq Au Vin with Seasonal Vegetables
4. Treacle Tart with Honey & Ginger Icecream (see previous post for recipe)
   
5. English Cheeses with Port
6. Coffee and Baklava

Pheasant Coq Au Vin
I spied these little beauties in the window of a local butcher of mine - Tidimans on Broadway market, which has been there since time immemorial. It used to be a rather sad but unfortunately all too typical vendor of discounted family bags of frozen meat, but has evolved considerably over recent years, owing to renewed demand and interest from locals, and now stocks a rather fine array of meat, fowl and other fine food stuffs. Anyway, catching site of these pretty little things, I mused to myself how perfect it would be presentation wise to serve a single bird to each of my guests and really make them the focal point of the dish and plate. So, decision made, I trooped back through London Fields one Friday I had off and purchased four of these hen pheasants. Incidentally, I have no idea as to the sex of the birds but assume that 'hen' refers to their young age - I could well be wrong, but while still dominating a plate, they were smaller than a fully grown bird. I also returned from that trip with a bumper pack of free condoms from a mobile STD van I got dragged into - that's Christmas in the 21st century for you!
Sods law holding thrall, I then had an email from a 5th invite to say that he would be only too glad to join our party. Of course, they had run out of those same buggering birds the next day and it was all a bit touch and go with me having to wait until Monday to phone and reserve an extra pheasant for collection on Christmas Eve. It all worked out in the end. Just as well otherwise we would have been drawing straws for a quail.
So, cooking these sods... I woke up rather rudely on Christmas day with all shopping complete but not much in the way of forward preparation (bar the frozen bouillabaisse). After an hour soak in the bath which seemed to rid my body of some of it's many intoxicants by way of osmosis, I rolled out onto the floor and managed to rouse myself into action. This was at ten o'clock and I had made it be known I expected people promptly at four. With regards to the main course, it was quite the logistical head fuck to fit everything in the oven, in fact, it simply was not possible. I had brussels to steam on the hob, fine, but also potatoes to roast separate from carrot and parsnip batons, not forgetting the birds themselves. What I ended up doing, more from quick thinking rather than planning, was to part 'pot roast' the pheasant, covered, and the potatoes on a relatively low heat (probably no more than 120 degrees) for about an hour and then swap for the carrots and parsnips as I warmed the oven all the way up to 200 degrees. Once there, I swapped again for the birds with foil removed and the potatoes to which I gave a light dusting of semolina flour. The pheasant then came out to rest which allowed me throw the vegetables back in to heat and focus on the meat reduction. Quite the careful juggling act but one that, on this occasion paid off wonderfully.

For the birds:

• however many hen / young pheasants as diners require. Do not give them the option of more than one per person
  
• a good many onions
• a bottle of red wine
• olive oil
• twig or two of rosemary
• sprig or three of thyme
• garlic
• mushrooms - I used shitake (it's the kind of thing I have lying around - I really do)
• juniper berries
• whole black peppercorns
  
• dried cranberries, currants and / or other berries
• bay leaves
• thin streaky bacon to blanket over our bare pheasant breasts
  
• orange rind and juice. One should be sufficient
  

For the stuffing:

• breadcrumbs from stale white bread. I bought a whole french stick and divyed it up between breadcrumbs for both the stuffing and treacle tart and the remaining to slice for the bruschetta (toasted with olive oil and sea salt so slightly stale was ideal)
  
• goose fat!
• any left over bacon bits after wrapping our birds
• sage
• white onion and / or shallots
• a clove or two of garlic, naturally
• probably some butter too
  

Preparation:

1. assuming you or someone else has already done the dirty of trimming, rinsing and drying our fine fowl... drown them in a good dose of red wine, rub olive oil and pepper into their skin. Not salt for now as you want to avoid drawing moisture out of them. Then leave overnight or, as in my case, whatever few hours you have spare.
   
2. In the meantime, mix up the stuffing which is really just a simple matter of mulching together the various ingredients. You need the goose fat as the whole purpose of this stuffing, if not every stuffing, is to baste the bird from the inside.
3. Remove the pheasants from whatever and wherever you have them marinating and fill their cavities fit to bursting with stuffing. Actually, you don't want half cooked stuffing oozing in your pan juices so don't absolutely over do it.
4. Slice the onions into thick rounds to use as trivets. You can leave on any stubborn skin. Arrange these throughout the pan and place the pheasants on top of them so our pretty birds are ingeniously raised above the base of the tray and the liquids that we are about to fill it with
5. Empty the red wine into your tray so you've got a good 2 cm of liquid but licking the bottoms of your birds.
6. Into this randomly distribute your rosemary, thyme, mushrooms, juniper berries, black peppercorns, other berries, bay leaves, orange juice and rind and garlic.
7. Carefully stretch bacon rashers over the pheasant breasts and any other exposed areas
8. Cocoon the whole tray in foil so you're effectively braising the birds to begin with. Put them into the oven on a low heat, around 120 degrees is what I'm guessing I went with, and leave for one hour.
9. Remove from the oven and discard the foil. They should be well on the way to being cooked through at this point. Give one breast a customary stab and see what's happening inside. By this point they should be still be a touch pink but not too much in the way of bloody.
10. With the pheasant still secured on your makeshift onion trivets, drain but save all the liquid from the pan together with all the other bobbing contents.
11. Raise the oven to 200 degrees and once it's heated evenly, return the birds to the roast, sans foil. I managed to crowd them all onto the one tray at this point.
12. Keep an eye on them. You only want them to crisp a touch on the outside and for the stuffing to firm up. This took me I would say somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes.
13. While you're waiting, reduce the pan juices that you've saved from the birds. Cook this down on a fierce simmer for 5 to 10 minutes before straining well. Return the liquid to the pan and add some brown sugar and season to taste. You (well, I) want this thick, rich, sticky and sweet.
14. Your birds should probably be out now and resting.
    
15. Finally, to finish the jus, add a some slaked cornflour to thicken slightly (that's when you mix it with a tiny bit of water to form a paste - stops it from forming lumps)
16. Serve your beautiful birds in the centre of the plate with the jus dished up around them. I accompanied with carrot and parsnip batons, roasted with sesame oil, arranged around the edge of the plate in sun dial fashion with steamed brussels interspersed between. Not wanting to sully this presentation, I served roasted potatoes in a separate bowl.