cleaning pheasants

[Ryan_V]

what do you guys do in cleaning a bird? do you just take the breasts? or clean it whole? I have always just breasted them out, but this year I've had lots of practice cleaning birds :-) and have been taking the legs as well, but I've been finding that there are alot of tendons. just wondering what you fellas do. pheasant for dinner again tonite!

[Mr.Seaguar]

I take the legs and thighs and boil them to make pheasant salad sandwiches.

[rundrave]

i keep the legs and freeze them all together, and freeze the breast meat separate.

there was a recipe that someone posted on here a while back of a crock pot recipe for just the legs that was like a soup and was pretty good. I was trying to find it but didnt have any luck. I cant remember who posted it.

[yakfisher]

I pluck em or skin em and always save the legs. I think the thighs are delicious. Breaded and fried and covered in franks is great way to eat them. I saw an episode on Meat Eater this year where he went grouse hunting. When he cleaned the grouse he made an incision through the skin around the knee but not through the tendons, he then pulled the lower legs off and the tendons came out with them. I've been trying that with pheasants this year, but haven't year made any of the legs this year. I have found that to actually be able pull the leg off of a pheasant I have had to cut the large tendon that runs across the back of the knee. It seems to work pretty slick and pulls most if not all the tendons out unless I accidentally cut one while cutting the skin. I have also been using a havalon knife with the surgical blades. I have always felt not taking the legs could be considered waste.

[castmaster]

I breast them out and cut the legs and thighs off. To me if not keeping the leg and thigh meat would be the same as shooting a deer and taking the loins and hind quarters and leaving the rest. Why waste it?

[R. Miller]

I skin all my birds, get as much meat off as you can. I'll crock pot, etc, entire birds if they're in great shape, otherwise like I said skin the whole thing and I take a fillet knife to them. I'll even get some wing/back meat off of them. Lotta meat around the thighs/legs too.

[harvey lee]

I keep all my legs and thight's for pheasant soup. MY bride has been using these parts for her soup for years and I love it.

I posted one once rundave but it may not be the one you are thinking of, my guess at least a couple years ago.

If someone wanted this recipe, e-mail me and I would be happy to send it or PM me.

[BLACKJACK]

You're throwing away some of the best meat on the pheasant if you throw away the thigh meat!!!

When cleaning pheasants I skin the breasts, debone the breast, getting two nice pieces of breast meat. Then I start skinning the thigh and leg, cut the thigh/leg off by making a cut from the tail to the joint, then 'pull' it off, you get more meat along the backbone. Flex the leg and thigh, finding the joint, cut the thigh off the bottom end of the leg. Then debone the thigh by making a slits one each side of the leg. That boneless piece of thigh meat is every bit as good as the breast meat and gets packaged and used with the breast meat.

The lower end of the leg, the part with all the tendons, gets froze seperately, when I get 10-12 then I throw in a roaster and slow cook, or cook in water and pick the meat off for soup. The meat you get off the bottom end of the leg is good but lots of work, regardless how you cook them you end up with bone/meat soup, can't blame guys for throw out the bottom part.

Nice thing about just breasting out and cutting off the legs is that you don't have to get into the [PoorWordUsage] guts that have been shot up by a shotgun. And you can cut away the bad parts of the shotup legs and breasts. Good eating starts at the cleaning table!!

[Matt C]

Anyone have pictures of this process to keep the legs/thighs?

[R. Miller]

I'll try taking a few pics next couple birds I get. Really it's worth just trying on your own. I like to run a fillet knife under their thigh bone, great section of meat there. On top of thigh bone as well.

As far as the bottom portion of legs with all the tendons, I usually take a knife to that as well, getting a few nice pieces of meat off, great for pan frying, etc. Once the meat from lower legs is cut off, the tendons actually can be pulled out pretty easily for me before cooking. BLACKJACK described it well.

Another reason I like to skin them...I always keep a few pelts each year...one of these years I am going to start tying flies in the winter!

[yakfisher]

Skin the whole bird once and you will see where the thigh muscle runs up to the back. Slice that muscle in front of the hip bone and behind the hip then make a turn around the hip bone give the leg a twist and the leg will pop right off. Pretty simple really. Once you have it skinned you will see where the muscles run what needs to be cut.

As far as removing the lower portion of the leg many guys just use sheers and snip it off. I vacuum seal my birds and the jagged bones cut the bags. What I have done in the past is take the leg and bend it over sideways at the knee joint then cut all the tendons at the joint and remove the leg leaving the rounded end of the femur. Lately, I have tried a new technique where I bend the leg at the knee then carefully cut through the skin and the large tendon that runs the back of the leg but none of the other tendons. Then grab the upper leg in one hand and the lower leg in the other and pull until the leg separates and the tendons pull out of the meat.

Sorry no pictures for you.

[PurpleFloyd]

Getting rid of the tendons:

[yakfisher]

Nice. That's even easier than what I've been doing. Thanks.

[BLACKJACK]

I'm going to have to try that!!!! Looks simple and will make that lower part of the leg easier to cook and eat.

Hope to get some pheasants this weekend, heading for South Dakota!!!

[Ryan_V]

That's cool! gonna try that for sure! thanks for posting

[rundrave]

wow thanks for sharing, all these years of cleaning birds and I never saw that before.

[Matt C]

Nice!

[TruthWalleyes]

Getting rid of the tendons:

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[lawdog]

I'm gonna try that leg tendon trick!

I always skin them and clean them whole. I also keep the hearts and throw a whole bunch of duck/goose/pheasant hurts in with the turkey on thanksgiving. We used to always race to get the heart, now there are PLENTY most years...

[Stcloudangler]

That should help with the way I feel about eating that part... thanks for the vid!

[CaptainMusky]

Priceless! I too had gotten sick of the legs and sad to say I stopped even taking them off the bird. No one would eat them.

After seeing that I will give it a try.

[PurpleFloyd]

I was actually looking for a different video with a method I have been using where you take a knife and cut around the leg and pull the lower part of the leg off and the tenons come with. Since doing that the legs have been easier to deal with and I have even been cooking them in the fryer and eating with buffalo sauce but this is an even better version.

[candiru]

I tried it on a couple of birds today. They both were old birds so maybe that make it tougher.

I probably should have tried right when I got back to the truck. No, I am not going to leave the foot there for someones dog to eat. Maybe use the tire like the guy used the stump. The legs froze by the time I got home. It didn't work as slick as the video showed. Don't try to pull them by the head it takes a lot of force. I ended up getting it done after cutting the leg off the bird. I will keep trying.

I put the legs/thighs in the crockpot and clean the meat off of them. They get used for soup, enchiladas, and in chicken helper. I would be wary of letting young kids have them do to the potential for leaving small bones in them. I do toss them if they are shot up or damaged.

[Ryan_V]

I shot another bird today and tried this tendon trick. it worked like a charm for me. I am making soup tomorrow, so I'll see how the legs look when I boil them and pull the meat off!

[R. Miller]

Got a couple roosters on Thursday and tried the method from the video. Worked well. To test it out, I pan fried the 4 legs in hot olive oil, legs covered in Shorelunch. Still a couple tendons in there when eating but an enjoyable way to eat the drummies.