the UK based Restaurant and Hotel Review
the UK based Restaurant and Hotel Review
The Game Season 2005
Clifford Mould
celebrates the return of fur and feather
to our kitchens and restaurants
Click here for game menu details from a range of London restaurants
Seasonality in cooking, and especially in certain restaurants, is thankfully not yet quite a thing of the past. In spite of the march of the supermarkets, who seem to think that we must have strawberries in December, fresh asparagus in January and pheasants in May, our best TV pundits have helped enormously in reminding us that certain foods are to be looked forward to, longed for even, and then celebrated when they finally arrive in due season. Rick Stein, with his Food Heroes series has emphasised the best of British regionality and was even filmed gun in hand on a pheasant shoot. Robust folk like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Clarissa Dickson-Wright have highlighted the care that country folk take in harvesting the fruits, nuts and meats that nature provides. I was almost about to say 'free', but of course not all game is strictly 100% wild, and the rearing and feeding of game birds in particular makes them quite an expensive quarry for the hunter. There was an old Victorian saying about pheasant shooting that went "Up goes a guinea, bang goes tuppence and down comes half a crown!". It's just as true today that for the consumer at least, game can be quite a cheap treat. Pigeons and rabbits, which are virtually free, can give as much pleasure at the table as some of their more expensive cousins. And game is good for you: it's low in fat and high in protein.
When does the season start?
Much is made of "The Glorious 12th", with grouse being flown down to smart London restaurants where it is cooked under-hung and sold for silly prices. The season for grouse does begin early (it's the same for the much rarer snipe), and for the beaters if the heat doesn't get you, the midges certainly will! Grouse are off limits by 10th December, so they are strictly an autumnal dish. This year (2005) grouse are like hen's teeth because the warm winter failed to kill of the worms that can wipe out the flocks. Bags have been down and prices have soared as sport has been hit.
September 1st heralds the start of the partridge season and also that for duck and geese. You have to wait until October the 1st to shoot pheasant and that much rarer delicacy, woodcock (see below), so don't expect to be offered any in a restaurant until the second week of October at the very earliest. I was shocked to see pheasant on the menu of a well known Kensington restaurant yesterday, the 1st of September. It must've been in the freezer for eight months or so!
The season dates for deer vary according to the species and the sex of the beast. Fallow and red deer stags can be shot from August 1st to 30th April, but Roe deer bucks have a season running from 1st April to October 31st. Rabbit are in season throughout the year, as are hares, though the latter may be offered for sale only from March to July inclusive. It's all a bit tricky, so buying your game from a licensed game dealer should ensure that the meat is fresh and properly in season.
Hanging and preparing feathered game
There's a famous and, I hope, apocryphal story about a diner in a London gentleman's club who raved about the delicious and succulent stuffing in his grouse. It turned out to be maggots as the bird had been hung for a month. How long game should be hung is a matter of individual taste and the weather. If it is warm and damp, the natural processes can occur with frightening rapidity. I tend to hang my pheasants in the garage singly (never as a brace, so that air can circulate) for between five and ten days, longer if there's a frosty snap. Duck and pigeon shouldn't be hung for more than a day or two. This is especially important as the current fashion for serving the beast meat is rosy pink. The legs of game birds have strong tendons because they run about more than they fly. If the legs are tough and full of tendons, your butcher or game dealer has fallen down on the job, as drawing the tendons is just as important as drawing the innards.
Books etc
Last autumsn saw the publication of The Game Cookbook, by Clarissa Dickson-Wright and Johnny Scott, two undoubted authorities on the subject. They are people who have great love and respect for their quarry and their hints on the preparation of game before it reaches the kitchen are as apt as their many and ingenious ways of cooking it. The Game Cookbook is very beautifully illustrated, but this is no mere coffee table tome. There are five chapters: game birds, wildfowl, deer, hares and rabbits and finally (and very usefully) fish, which includes pike and carp.
Apart from clear explanations of how to excel in cooking the classics, there are some ingenious ideas derived from Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The casserole recipe for pheasant with peanut butter to enrich the sauce sounded really yummy, and the Spanish recipe for pigeons stuffed with anchovies reminded me of a wonderful tapas dish I once had in Spain where quails were stuffed with anchovy. It sounds impossibly quirky, but I can tell you it works wonderfully well.
www.Amazon.co.uk are offering this title at a 30% discount. Recently I picked up a copy of the Game Conservancy's book: Classic Game Cookery by Julia Drysdale for one pound at a local charity shop. There are also masses of good recipes to be found on the internet if you type "game recipes" into www.google.com
My favourite game restaurants.
Traditionally, country house hotels and the grander hotels in town have always been a safe bet for the enthusiast to enjoy well cooked game dishes. In London, there are famous establishments like the Savoy Grill, the Dining Room at the Goring Hotel, Rules and Simpson's-in-the-Strand.
How to serve woodcock: (from my review of a since closed restaurant, Putney Bridge)
The precious little creature came served on a crispy croustade with all its innards properly reserved and minced up (what a flavour). The head, with its impossibly long beak, was bisected with geometric precision; the little limbs arranged around the modest but tender breasts, like those of a nubile Russian gymnast achieving that miraculous balance of contortion and grace. This is what I call full blown grown up gastronomy, where the greatest pleasures often involve a certain element of risk. I plunged in, albeit with delicacy, to be rewarded by the most exquisite expression of wild, unfettered gaminess. It was a dish whose rarity, and the skill with which it had been prepared, left this particular gastronome entirely satisfied.
Click here for game menu details from a range of London restaurants
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