Pheasant roasted with cipolline onions, porcini, liver crostini – by Bruno Loubert

INGREDIENTS

(serves four)

2 pheasants
Sauce (see below)
400g cipolline onions
250ml water
Sugar
Butter
Corn oil
400g porcini mushrooms
4 slices bread, plus olive oil to make crostini
100g chicken liver
50g shallots
2 cloves garlic
1 sprig thyme
50g mascarpone
10ml grappa
2tbs flat leaf parsley
Salt and pepper

For the sauce
80g pancetta
Butter
Pheasant legs
150g shallots
80g mushroom trimmings
2 cloves garlic
100g celery
100ml Marsala wine
500ml chicken stock
100g glace de viande
1 bay leaf

METHOD

To make the sauce, cook the pancetta with a bit of butter. Cut the legs off the pheasant and chop in half. Add chopped legs, shallots, mushroom trimmings, garlic and celery. Colour well and deglaze with the Marsala wine. Add the chicken stock, glace de viande and bay leaf. Cook for one hour, then pass through a chinois and reduce to right consistency.

Cook the cipolline onions in the water, salt, sugar and butter until just soft. Place the pheasants, minus legs, on a tray with corn oil, butter, salt and the onions and roast for 15-20 minutes in a hot oven. Place pheasant on a dish. Cover with foil. Rest.

Discard some of the fat in the roasting tin and add the sliced porcini. Cook until golden brown. Brush bread with oil and toast. Pan-fry the chicken liver with shallots, garlic and thyme. Remove thyme, purée and add the mascarpone and grappa, some salt and pepper. Spread over crostini.

Place the pheasants on a dish. Arrange porcini and onions around. Pour over the juice and finish with the crostini. Sprinkle with parsley.

Bruno Loubet