Pheasant Legs

[BLACKJACK]

When we go to SoDak pheasant hunting my brother and I like to grab the last 20-30 birds that we've shot, cleaned, soaked out, and bagged, we put them in coolers with ice so when we get back we can process them right away, rather than having a bunch of frozen, shot up birds in our freezers. By processing them, I mean filleting off the breast meat, cutting off the legs and thighs at the body, separating the thighs and legs, deboning the thighs, being fairly harsh and throwing away anything that’s shot up, soaking everything out, then vacuum packing the breast and thigh meat into nice bone-less packages that can be used in just about any recipe. Then what to do with the legs?

Side note - anybody that just takes the breast meat out of a pheasant and throws the rest away is losing out on a nice piece of meat!!! Try that boneless thigh meat sometime!!! In most recipes, the majority of people can’t tell the difference between the breast meat and de-boned thigh meat.

Back to the leftover lower legs. I don’t blame people for throwing them away but there is a lot of good eating in them if they’re done right. I’ve tried different recipes, mostly crock-pot ones, and the legs either come out tough or you end up with pheasant/bone soup, not fun picking thru all the bones. Last week I took the 14 legs I had left over, threw them into a small roaster, dumped a can of mushrooms over them, dumped a can of cream of mushroom and a can of cream of celery over them, added some already cooked wild rice, then cooked them for three hours at 325 degrees. They were done after three hours, but I still had some more stuff to do outside so I added about ¾ cup of water, turned it down to 300, and let it go another hour. When I finally got around to eating they were fall off the bone done and I had plenty of gravy for my baked potatoes. Very good!! The key was not stirring up the roaster and making it into pheasant bone soup. Granted I had a big pile of bones when I was done, this is not a meal to feed to a four year old, but the meat that was left was excellent.

If you’ve been looking for a pheasant leg recipe, try cooking them slow in a roaster, you won’t regret it.

[mylineswet]

I like to pressure cook the legs and thighs and then debone them. It is pretty easy to do and then you have great soup meat. I use chicken broth to pressure cook them and when I am done the tendons and bones pull out real easy. I use 15lbs for 20 min. in the cooker.

[BLACKJACK]

Might have to try that pressure cooker method, I have a Pheasant Pot Pie recipe that calls for deboned meat. I could throw a few thighs in with legs instead of putting them with the breasts....

[Farley]

I smoke them with a pickled brine recipie. It says one whole pheasant, I just subsitute about 6-8 legs, brine it overnight and run it through the smoker for about 4-5 hours at 150-200, I skip the honey and soy sauce mixture also.

SMOKED PHEASANT

Ingredients:

1 whole pheasant (with or w/o skin)

wood chips (Cherry, Alder, or Mesquite recommended)

1/2 cup pickling salt

6 cups cold water

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 tbsp maple syrup

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

2 tsp pickling spice

2 tbsp honey

3 tsp soy sauce

1 cup chicken broth

Directions:

In glass bowl or ziplock bag, combine pickling salt, water, brown sugar, maple syrup, vinegar, and pickling spice. Add pheasant and put in fridge for at least 4 hours, turning occaisionally. Drain, discard brine, let pheasant dry on paper towl for 30 minutes. In small bowl combine honey and soy sauce. start gas or charcoal grill on one side only and soak wood chips in water. Put wood chips on hot coals and put pan with chicken broth over coals. Brush pheasant with honey soy sauce mixture and place on grill on side opposite hot coals. Cover and maintain temp between 150-250 degrees, opening grill as little as possible. Smoke pheasant for 2-3 hours, adding more chips during the last hour. Pheasant will be ready to eat off the grill.

Notes:

1 beer can be added to the chicken broth if desired. Gas grill works best for this recipe as temp can be regulated accurately.