Warning, this one is not for the squeamish!
I attended the Taste of Game course at the Brompton Cookery School, run by Chef Marcus Bean and his wife Jenny, after spotting their advert in Yattar Yattar magazine.
As the beardy husband is helping a local gamekeeper with their rabbit problem, I’m being presented with lots of lovely fresh rabbit, partridges, pheasants and ducks (the left over birds from the local shoots). We’ve been having a good go (with the help of You Tube) and we’d nearly mastered butchering the rabbits down. I had cracked jointing it but not removing the loin so there was still room for improvement. We’d had some really tasty mustard and cider based stews as a result, but pin feathering partridges was slowly driving me insane! There had to be a better way. The oven ready birds you see at your local farm shop or butchers don’t look stubbly states like the ones I was preparing!
As it turns out, there absolutely is a better way….
We started the day by preparing the rabbit, pheasant and partridge that we would cook later on and we had soon all disappeared in a cloud of feathers as it was a tad windy outside!
The partridge was a plucking revelation (literally!) as Marcus showed us how to gently roll the feathers off between our thumb and forefinger, in small amounts, against the lie of the feathers. This removed them so cleanly, there was no need for pin feathering afterwards. He also showed us super quick ways to remove the breast and legs from the pheasant and how to skin the rabbit in one go too.
Further prep involved getting the partridge to an oven ready state, jointing the rabbit and removing the belly flaps and loin.
We managed to cook so much food in a day, I couldn’t believe how many dishes we took home. Here’s a quick run down;
- Pheasant Chassuer
- Cold pressed game and ham hock terrine
- Game pasties
- Confit rabbit
- White risotto with oven roast partridge, poached pears rolled in a Dukka
We ate the partridge and risotto for lunch and were given the choice of a wonderfully chilled glass of white wine or a lovely glass of red to accompany it. The chefs who had been helping us for the afternoon session also knocked up a quick little pudding for us and we were ready to cook again.
John, who took us through the recipes in the afternoon, was really friendly and knowledgeable and we all felt happy to quiz him on all the aspects of the dishes.
The recipes I took away can all be adapted for different meats so I’ll get lots of use out of them, and some of the chefy tips and tricks I learnt will make a difference throughout my cooking.
They run lots of different courses at the school, everything from bread making to Asian cooking and I’ll definitely be looking at attending another.
The school itself is very well equipped (my first dalliance with an induction hob!) and is situated in a lovely old farm building complex. There’s a B&B on the same site for anyone who’s travelling any distance.
The only thing I would have changed about the whole experience is that it would have been much easier if the courses could be booked online.
Date attended: November 2015
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