The pheasant housewife, much like the peasant housewife, dresses entirely in drab. She opts for plump, brown and pleasant. After all, her day is spent scratching for bugs.
Not her husband. Bigger and brawnier by nature, the he-pheasant dresses in gold, silver, ruby, emerald or sapphire. He struts around trailing a long tail. He wears spurs, crimson eye shadow and a flashy ringneck. All bling, that bird.
Come spring, the pheasant fellow lowers those gilded eyelids at the pheasantess and soon has a clutch of a dozen pheasant-minis to tend to. And yet doesn’t.
Nope. The guy pheasant, and we quote here a major online repository of bird knowledge, plays “no part in rearing the young.” No midnight feeding. No diaper change. No hot and harried dash to the pediatrician. No tossing around the baseball. No PB&J duty. No dishes. Homework? Not a single spelling list or word problem. The pheasant dad just lifts his fine feathered shoulders and shrugs.
He’s busy playing the field. The pheasant cad could star in an avian version of “Big Love.” He might pledge to honor and obey 10 hens. Settle each in the roost with the chirping chicks, then duck out for a drink in the wetlands.
Which might explain why the permit-holding pheasant hunter is generally instructed to aim for the male. In season, the sportsman suits up in camo and shotgun, on the lookout for the lout. He calls it recreation. Conservation. Harvest.
The wild pheasant, toughened by a life on the lam, tends toward the stringy end of delicious. It’s best roasted slowly under a blanket of bacon, braised at length with garlic or simmered into soup. Served on a cool evening when dusk comes early, it brings to mind the bold hunt, the imposing still-life, the leaves left lingering on the lawn.
The farm-raised pheasant, felled in the poultry case, is considerably easier to bag. Not to mention fatter, juicier and quicker to cook. Though a diet of game-bird grower-as opposed to bug salad-gives the domesticated pheasant a tamer taste.
We’re all for convenience. The whole pink-dawn, golden-retriever, orange-cap routine strikes us as tiresome. And yet we wonder if the hunter sharpening her arrow for the girls-only outing finds satisfaction in making dinner out of deadbeat.
PHEASANT LENTIL SOUP
Serves six
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
3 leeks, thinly sliced and rinsed
3 carrots, chopped
2 onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 quarts chicken broth
1 pheasant (2-3 pounds) rinsed and halved*
1 cup dried lentils
1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup Madeira
1. Soften: Melt butter in a large soup pot over medium-low heat. Add the leeks, carrots, onions and garlic. Cook until wilted, 15 minutes.
2. Simmer: Add the stock, pheasant, lentils, half the parsley, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered, 30 minutes.
3. Thicken: Remove the pheasant and continue simmering the soup, uncovered, 30 minutes more. Skim off any accumulated fat.
4. Shred: When pheasant is cool enough to handle, shred the meat and set aside. Discard bones.
5. Spike: Add Madeira, remaining parsley and the shredded meat to the soup. Adjust the seasonings and heat through, but do not boil. Serve hot.
*If you’re not one to hunt your own, check for pheasant in the poultry section, fresh or frozen. Or feel free to substitute chicken.
–Adapted from “The New Basics Cookbook” by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins
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