French · Main
Faisan aux Choux
- Intermediate
- 40 min
- roughly 3 of 4 for cost
Leads with wood-smoke running underneath, richness that coats and comforts, with a clean, bright snap.
Ingredients
- 1 pheasant, about 1.1 kg, trussed
- 10 g fine salt
- 1 Savoy cabbage, about 900 g, cored and cut into 8 wedges
- 150 g smoked streaky bacon, in one piece
- 1 Morteau or other coarse smoked pork sausage, about 200 g
- 150 g carrot, halved lengthways
- 120 g onion, studded with 3 cloves
- 40 g duck fat
- 250 ml dry white wine
- 400 ml chicken or game stock
- 6 juniper berries, crushed
- 2 bay leaves
- 3 sprigs thyme
- 30 g butter
- 2 g black pepper
The skills inside
TrussingSalted water & the float test
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Salt and pepper the bird inside and out and leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight.
- Boil the cabbage wedges 5 minutes in salted water, drain them and press the water out, which takes the sulphurous edge off a vegetable that is about to cook for an hour. 5 min
- Brown the pheasant in the duck fat, breast first, lift it out, and bed the pot with the cabbage, bacon, sausage, carrot, clove onion, juniper, bay and thyme.
- Sit the bird breast down on the cabbage, pour in the wine and stock, cover, and cook at 150C (300F) for 1 hour 15 minutes, until the thigh reads 74C (165F). 60 min
- Rest the bird 15 minutes, reduce the pot juices and swirl in the butter, then carve the legs and breasts back onto the cabbage. 15 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Salted water & the float test 188 recipes
- The water was salted before anything went in, and tasting it confirms it: seasoned on the tongue, with the salt dissolved rather than sitting on the pot floor.
- There is enough water, hot enough, that the pot returns to its boil quickly after the food goes in and never stops moving.
- Where the dish uses the float as its signal, the signal is obeyed: the pieces rise and they come out then, not several minutes later once something else was finished.
- Nothing is stuck to the bottom of the pot or welded to itself, and the water has not thickened into a cloudy sludge.
- Drained on a bite rather than on the clock: resistance at the centre, with no chalky raw core.
Where it goes wrong The pot was too small and the water unsalted, so it never recovered its boil: the food sat in slack water, went gummy at the surface, and comes out bland in a way that no sauce afterwards can fix.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Pinot Noir (the classic)
- Also Right
- Cru Beaujolais (Morgon)
- From the Taps
- Belgian dubbel
- Zero-Proof
- Black cherry spritz
Acid and silk against duck fat: the oldest marriage in Burgundy, with Gamay as its cheerful younger witness.
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