Butter poached pheasant breast

Last Saturday I cooked a 7 course meal for 8 people. I had never tried butter poaching. Since I have a pretty ready supply of pheasants*
I decided to try using the process with the breasts. I love wild game and process all the animals myself, with wild birds, however, I can't clean them, cook them, and then eat them. The wild odor gets to me. If I don't have to do the cleaning I don't have a problem.

I wanted to make certain that I prepared the breasts in a manner that could tame any wild odors and yet let the actual flavor of the meat come through. I thought butter poaching might be the ticket. The dish was the hit of the evening!

I first froze in an ice cube tray some of my homemade cxhicken stock. I used my seal a bag machine. In each bag I placed 1/2 of a pheasant breast, 1/4 of a stick of unsalted butter, a chicken stock ice cube, a sprig of marjarum, a sprig of lavender, and a pinch of salt. I sealed the bags leaving a little air space in them. To finish, I placed the bags in a pot of water that was just below simmer for about 20 minutes.

I served the breasts over a litttle bit of hand parched wild rice that had been prepared with vegetable stock and had added the last two minutes chopped celery, shallots, fennel, carrot and chanterelles that had been sweated and finished with a splash of sherry. I placed the breast on top of the wild rice, spooned 2 spoonfuls of the poaching liquid over the breast and garnished with a sprig of lavender.

Everyone was sad there wasn't a second portion. There was none of the wild gamey bird odor in the kitchen nor at the table.

* My 2 year old Vizsla has the ability to vacumn a field. He locates, points and holds almost 100% of the birds.

[Jenise]

George, great to hear from you again. And you know what, I had an astonishingly moist and flavorful boneless pheasant breast at a New York City restaurant about two years ago and I couldn't figure out quite how they did it. I'll just bet you've solved the problem: they first poached it sous vide, then grilled it off.

More of us should try this method--thanks.

Sounds great, George.

One question - how did you determine the cooking time on these?

I came across a recipe that was used on Top chef for chicken breasts done in a bag. I used that cooking time as a guide. Also you can tell by looking at the breasts if they are about done. Pheasant breast isn't very thick.
What I placed in the bag was my own creation. When I first read about butter poaching I thought that the end product would be greasy. It wasn't. I added the stock fro two reasons. First, it was added to lessen the probability of a greasy end product. The second reason was to reduce any gaminess with out masking the flavor of the pheasant.