If nut roast is on your menu this Christmas you might want to head to a different food blog, just this once. Reason being, this is all about game - hunting and preparing it for the table - and possibly it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.
I could be wrong. The popularity of game is steadily growing, at least in the UK, where it’s fashionable again to eat pheasant, partridge, rabbit, venison and the like. It seems to me that this is a good thing: game is delicious, good for you (because it’s lean) and sustainable (because it’s managed.)
My family isn’t as keen on eating game as I am, so I rarely cook it at home and when I do, it’s tricky to get right because, being lean, it dries out so easily. So the Feathered & Furred course at the White Pepper cookery school was a great chance to learn how to prepare and cook game properly, as well as discover more about its journey from field to the pot.
White Pepper is an award-winning cookery school tucked away in converted farm buildings in a very pretty corner of West Dorset, not too far from Poole. Founder Luke Stuart really makes the most of his location and has forged strong links with local food producers.
Local gamekeeper Brett (pictured here with his wife Shelley’s beautiful Harris Hawk), started the day talking to us about how game birds are reared and managed on the estate. Brett explained that it’s important to know the provenance, age and other details of the game you buy, so go to a quality supplier. The British Association of Shooting and Conservation has regional lists of accredited places where you can buy and eat game.
Gun dog Ruby demonstrated how she sniffs out and retrieves birds during a shoot (some game birds were hidden in a field for this exercise as there’s no actual shooting on this course).
Afterwards, Luke and chef Gerry showed us how to cook two delicious game bird dishes. We spent a very messy session plucking birds so we could cook the recipes ourselves, and then sat down to an enormous lunch: pheasant breast with caramelised apples and curry sauce, plus a whole roast partridge with thyme and grapes. (Plus some outrageously good puddings that were made for us.)
When lunch was over, local butcher Sean demonstrated whole venison butchery and rabbit skinning. He hung a whole Sika deer from the rafters of the kitchen; it had been culled in the Purbecks as part of The National Trust’s deer management programme. (Sika were first introduced from the Far East into Britain in 1860 and with numbers exceeding more than 4 million, they are now considered a pest.) The different cuts of venison were then available for us to buy and take home. We finished the day skinning and jointing a rabbit ourselves, which we were able to take home (along with a goody bag of ingredients, including a bottle of wine, to turn it into a delicious stew).
This is a fantastic course for anyone with a keen interest in game who’s prepared to really get stuck in - there’s another one of these scheduled in January. But if game is not your thing, there are more than 30 fantastic courses at White Pepper, including some terrific options for children (proper cooking that goes well beyond the humdrum fairycake routine).
One of the best things about this course is taking some game home to play with. I made a lovely rabbit and prune stew (which was, it has to be said, too gamey for the children to enjoy). I also made some fine partridge leg confit by rubbing the legs with minced garlic, sprinkling them generously with salt and thyme sprigs and chilling for 12 hours before rinsing and patting dry. I put them snugly in an ovenproof dish, covered them completely with rapeseed oil and left them in the lowest of low ovens for about 6 hours. The flesh came out extremely tender and full of flavour.
The universal favourite game dish at our house was the venison stew, made from chunks of leg. I used a recipe from Margot Henderson’s latest book, You’re All Invited. It should be top of your Christmas wish list if you don’t already have it.
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I would love the take this class at White Pepper…excellent post!