Game

Today we discussed small or 'furred' game and large game. We did not cook any 'furred' game. We had rabbit last week and no one was willing to go kill a squirrel so we could eat it. The recipes we made today were all large game. Lecture was quite short today seeing there isn't much to learn about game that most people don't already know. Class was small today as 3 of our 8 students were out because of the marathon. It's nice when it's a smaller class as you don't run into anyone as much, but the dishes suck when the numbers are that low!

The recipes I was in charge of today were the Roasted Pheasant with Apricots and Prunes and the Cranberry Swirl Cheesecake. I started with the cheesecake because I knew I could make it, put it in the fridge and forget about it until after we ate. I have never made cheesecake before. It's pretty easy. Still nothing I will willingly start doing though. It had a traditional graham cracker crust, the cheesecake itself had orange zest in it and then it was topped with a thick cranberry sauce that I swirled on top. I made 6 individual servings and then one larger one just to use up the rest of the filling. They all cracked, but I didn't really care because it's baking and you know how I feel about that.

After that, I started the pheasant. The cool part about that is they still had their feet on (see close-up picture). I roasted them for about 45 minutes. They are so very lean and have little meat to them and I thought that seemed like a long time, but chef said it was ok and that pheasant is not really known to be juicy anyways since there is hardly any fat. While they were roasting I made a thin veloute with flour, butter, and chicken stock. While this simmered, I added the juices from the roasted pheasants and a syrup that had wine and grand marnier in it. I also had the apricots and prunes soaking in this syrup too. I cut up one of the pheasants for service and kept the other one whole for presentation and covered it all with the veloute. It was pretty good. Most of the game was dry and somewhat tough since it's so lean and hard to keep moist. That is why we all had a sauce or two to go with our game meat.

Overall the day was pretty good. Don't look at how ugly the cheesecake looks, my thumb went into it on the side and I had already put a spoon through the center to see how cooked it was before I thought of taking the picture! We also got our quizzes back from last week. I got an 88. That kind of sucks, so I have to ace the baking quiz tomorrow. We also are presenting our restuarant topics tomorrow night in seminar. I'm really excited about it!

Today's Recipes:Braised Wild Boar with Braised Leeks and Mustard Sauce with Rice Pilaf, Duck Ragu with Cashews, Raisins and Pineapple with a Lime Scallion Custard, Venison Noisettes with Cumberland Sauce, Roasted Shallot Potato Cake, Date, Walnut and Goat Cheese Salad, Spiced Strawberry Sorbet with Black Pepper