Recipes

From Pies by Sophie Conran, she writes "While staying with my friends the Browns, Mr Brown produced a brace of pheasant. We drank red wine, plucked and chatted late into the night. The next day this pie was born".

Serves 4

    1 fat pheasant, plucked and gutted (ask your butcher to do this)
    Salt and freshly ground black pepper
    3 excellent sausages, skins removed
    2 tbsp olive oil
    1 onion, chopped
    1 leek, chopped
    1 stick celery, chopped
    2 carrots, chopped
    250g (9oz) button mushrooms, quartered
    1 tsp ground coriander
    ½ bottle red wine, something fruity like a Shiraz
    4 dollops of Worcestershire sauce
    2 bay leaves
    1 tsp cornflour
    100ml (4fl oz) chicken stock
    1½ tbsp golden caster sugar
    350g (12oz) good-quality butter puff pastry
    1 egg, beaten

Method

Season the pheasant with salt and pepper and set aside. Roll the sausagemeat into balls a bit smaller than walnuts and set them on a plate.

Put the oil in a large pan on a high heat. Quickly brown the pheasant all over, then take it out of the pan and put on a plate for later. Now place the sausage balls in the pan in the leftover oil. Roll them around occasionally until they are nicely browned and cooked through. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Add all the chopped vegetables and the ground coriander to the pan. Give them a stir and fry gently for 15 minutes. Pour in the wine and Worcestershire sauce and add the bay leaves. Put the pheasant in the pan on its side. Cover with a lid and allow to simmer for 15 minutes. Then turn the pheasant over and simmer for a further 15 minutes.

Remove the pheasant and let it cool. Allow the wine sauce to reduce for 10 minutes. Meanwhile cut the pheasant into bite-size chunks and set aside. Discard the skin and bones.

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Thoroughly mix the cornflour into a couple of tablespoons of the chicken stock. Put the wine sauce back on the heat and stir the cornflour mixture into the pan and pour in the rest of the stock. Allow it to simmer for 5 minutes to thicken, then remove it from the heat.

Stir in the pheasant meat, sugar and sausage balls. Pour the mixture into a pie dish. Make sure the mixture fills the dish to the top otherwise the pastry will sink. If the dish is a little large, place a pie funnel in the centre to hold it up. Set the pie aside.

Roll out the pastry into a piece that is large enough to cover the pie dish. Brush the edges of the dish with a little of the beaten egg. Cover the dish with the pastry and trim to fit, putting the unused pastry aside. Press down around the edges with your thumb to seal the pie. Brush all over the top with a little more of the beaten egg. Cut the extra pastry into shapes and decorate the top of the pie with them. If not using a pie funnel cur a small hole in the top to let steam escape and brush the top of the pastry all over with the rest of the beaten egg. Bake the pie in the oven for 25 minutes.