doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Dressing pheasants

Thanks for all the answers/comments gents. With all that said, I think I will continue to freeze or immediately cook my pheasant and quail. Lloyd says he cleans pellets, feathers, etc AFTER thawing a frozen bird. I do that before I ever shrink wrap and freeze one. I am absolutely fanatical about ensuring all the pellets and feathers driven into the meat by pellets is removed prior to any other processing or cooking. As a matter of fact, based upon a recipe I happened upon yesterday after posting my question, I have two large pheasant breasts marinating as we speak in a mixture of buttermilk and several spices. I pounded them with a meat tenderizing hammer prior to putting them in to soak. I will take them out tonight, allow them to drip a bit, and then into a flour bowl, then an egg wash, back into the flour, and then into a pan of hot oil. Once cooked about 2-3 minutes per side or total of 4-5 if I deep fry them, we are having fried pheasant sandwiches with mayonaise and pickle slices on Brioche buns tonight for dinner. And to top this delicacy off, Tater Tots!!! I know. I could drive most chefs crazy, but I am going to duplicate Popeyes fried chicken sandwiches with breaded and fried Ditch Parrot!!! If for some reason we decide against the rolls, the fillets will be plated and served with steamed broccoli or steamed and buttered asparagus. I am getting hungry already!!

That is some fine eating there, Perry.

Pheasant schnitzel is a favorite.

Give some consideration to a little dab of remoulade sauce, which I find goes great with crispy fried foods. Like, softshell crabs.

Perry:

I get it, being careful is never a bad idea. If it gives you peace of mind, so be it. To repeat what other have said often here..."as long as you're using them" it's all good to me. Sticking them in a crockpot with cream of mushroom soup is just fine with me as well.

The only reason I'm seemingly so-cavalier about these birds is the volume I deal with here. I'm the guide, cook and bottle-washer for alot of my time here, and I'm almost always the bird (& fish) cleaning guy for most everyone else here too.

I'd simply rather be having fun then working on birds all the time, so they're only mostly-perfect when they go into the freezer.

You can freeze them in the round if you’d like. Doesn’t harm them in the least. It might be more difficult to clean them later, but we do it all the time. Might be hunting in Kansas and have it be 2° for a week what do you do then? They’re frozen before they even get back to the truck.

I made enough pheasant marsala one time for a dinner party of 12.

And I froze the sauce, which was made ahead of time.

I went to get the sauce ready, and I couldn’t find it.

I asked my wife, and she said oh that? That was the best mushroom soup I’ve ever eaten. What was in it?

Had a chuckle over that one.

I thought I mentioned that Lloyd brines his birds (I do too) but, I overestimated how many hunters right here understand what, and why you brine birds:

https://www.survival-manual.com/food-storage/brine.php

The pilgrims didn’t have refrigerators. They had brine. A 10% brine kills every bug that has been mentioned in this post. Just a touch of research would have clarified exactly what is going on here, but, pussification is a real thing, it seems.


Thanks for the trip, Lloyd. Great time and memories.

Best,
Ted

Or not. And doing research (at a site other than that of a 'survivalist') does not make one a wuss. But if it make you feel superior Ted it's no problem.
Curing is more than brining. Brine salt concentrations are less than 5%. Salt concentration > 20% will kill bacteria. Curing since the 1800s is with sodium chloride and sodium nitrite.
https://www.scienceofcooking.com/how-does-brining-work.html

https://www.statefoodsafety.com/Resources/Resources/three-reasons-not-to-wash-chicken-before-cooking
"Marinate or brine meat for flavor, not as an attempt to kill bacteria. Marinating or brining meat does not reduce the number of pathogens contaminating the meat. Adding acid to such a marinade does not kill bacteria."

The acid in pickle juice seems to work
https://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2014/jul/pickle

You do it to get the bird to absorb moisture and seasonings
Not kill bacteria

It works
That’s why Tyson chicken is brined
Just read the package

More good news for us wusses
Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) including E. coli O157:H7 (Enterotoxigenic E. Coli) in wild birds. 5% to 10% of people with STEC develop hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS)
https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/aem.01678-19

I have never aged pheasants, though I did experiment with aging grouse. I did not find any real advantage to leaving them undrawn and hung. In fact I went the other direction and on warmer days started drawing ruffed grouse as soon as in the hand, carrying some painters gloves to make it easier and cleaner.

Concur with Keith and Doc.

The 5% that develop HUS are typically the very young or the very old:

https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/ecoli/basics.html

Are you going to get it from a northern Minnesota grouse? Get real. Freeze it, brine it, cook it, if you are paranoid, smoke it (I smoke birds and then build a pot of soup with them, it adds a dimension of flavor I really like). I usually bring everything to a quick boil, and turn it off.
Everybody loves it.

If poisoning from birds was going to happen anywhere, it would happen in California. They can’t clean the human feces off the streets in the cities, why would anyone suspect the farms would be run any cleaner?

If wild bird poisoning was a thing, it would be on blast in the liberal media, and there would be legislation to make eating wild birds verboten.

Come on. Find something else to be afraid of.

Best,
Ted