Tribeless Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Did a pretty good pheasant in the KK today. I spatchcocked it, brushed on olive oil, then seasoned well with pepper and smoked garlic salt, plus generous sprigs of thyme from the garden. Then to lard (*) it, put bacon not just over breast, but all of upper side of pheasant, including legs and wings. Put into KK, cooked on indirect method for three hours, at 180 F, which got internal meat temp to 140, then turned up KK to get good smoke with mesquite, plus took meat temperature up to 170 K (salmonella dies at 165 F so must get to that) then took off and let rest, breast side down for juices to flow back into (**), for ten minutes under foil. I was really impressed. I achieved the best smoking flavour in the pheasant and the bacon I've got yet (mesquite chips in foil with holes in on top of charcoal working really well, Dennis). And thanks to the larding (*), the meat was as moist as a correctly cooked chicken, and tender. I'll certainly be doing pheasant again like this. A great mix of flavours, both in the skin and the meat. * Larding: because pheasant is a very lean game bird, it can cook very dry. Larding is a process of putting fat into the bird. The easiest way to achieve this is to layer with bacon, to transfer the fat from that (and you get to eat lovely smoked bacon). ** Also note, as with chicken, I always let rest breast down as this allows juices to go back into the relaxing breast meats. Works a treat for succulent, moist breast meat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cookie Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Re: Pheasant That sounds pretty amazing... No pics??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tribeless Posted March 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Re: Pheasant By the time I've cooked it, I'm more concerned about eating it than photographing it Actually I meant to, but Saturday, had a bit of vino ... forgot. Next time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
