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Michael Caines’s roast pheasant with lentils, button onions and lardons
Serves 4 Starters and mains
Ingredients
- 2 pheasants, oven ready or dressed
- thyme sprig
- 2 garlic cloves
- non-scented oil, to roast
- unsalted butter, to cook
- 200g button onions
- pinch sugar
- knob of butter
For the lentils
- 250g green lentils
- 8 garlic cloves, peeled
- 150g shallots
- 1 onion, halved and spiked with cloves
- 150g carrots, cut into 4 lengthways
- 1 small bouquet garni (thyme, bay leaf, parsley stalks and celery bound with leek and tied with string)
- 1 heaped tsp chicken bouillon
- 400g smoked bacon trimmings knob of butter
- 100g thinly sliced lardons, blanched
- chopped flat-leaf parsley, to taste
Method
To prepare the lentils, place them in a pan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Strain using a colander, then refresh with cold water. Put the lentils back in the pan and add 1 litre fresh water along with the garlic, shallots, onion, carrots, bouquet garni, bouillon and bacon trimmings.
Bring to the boil and reduce to a slow simmer, then cook for around 45 minutes until the lentils are cooked. Allow to cool, then remove the onion, bouquet garni, and bacon trimmings (if preferred). Strain the lentils, place into a pan to heat and add a knob of butter. Add the blanched lardons and season, then finally add some chopped parsley.
Preheat the oven to 200C/ 180C F/Gas 6. To prepare the pheasant, stuff the birds with the thyme, garlic cloves, salt and pepper; season the outside of the bird, then heat a roasting tin and add a drop of the oil and some butter. Put the birds in the tin on their sides and cook in the oven for 5 minutes.
Turn the pheasants on to the other side and cook for a further 5 minutes, then turn on to the back, breast facing up, and cook for a final 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to rest for 10 minutes.
Put the button onions in a shallow pan and cover with water. Add a pinch of sugar, salt, pepper and a knob of butter and bring to the boil, reducing the water so the onions take on some colour.
Put the pheasant back in the oven to reheat and warm the lentils, being careful not to dry them out, then add the button onions and keep warm. Remove the legs and breast from the pheasants. Arrange the lentils on serving plates and top with the portioned pheasant to serve.
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