October 2024 - 13

WILD KITCHEN
Pheasant
noodle soup
If you are short of pheasants, use any white
meat. Turkey, rabbit, grouse, partridge or quail
all spring to mind. Everything else is pretty
easy to find. For me this is a winter-warmer,
something to eat for lunch on a cold day. For
dinner you might need only some bread and
a salad to go with it.
(Photo by Holly A. Heyser)
Hank Shaw hunts and
fishes across the country,
has penned multiple wild
game cookbooks and
keeps an award-winning
food blog at honest-food.
net. His cookbooks are
available at the Game and
Fish Store.
Ingredients
Broth
2 pheasants, breast meat removed
A little oil to coat the carcasses
Salt
3 bay leaves
2 celery stalks, chopped
4 leeks or 1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and sliced into discs
1 garlic clove, mashed
1 sprig rosemary
2 star anise pods (optional)
Soup
3 tablespoons butter
White parts from the leeks
or 1 chopped onion
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and sliced into discs
1 bay leaf
½ to 1 cup white vermouth or white wine
Salt and black pepper
1 pound egg noodles, orzo
or other soup pasta
¼ cup chopped parsley
Preparation
add 1 chopped onion now. Let the stock cook for
another 90 minutes.
Prep time: 3 hours
Cook time: 30 minutes
Serves: 8
1. Make the broth first. Coat the pheasants (breasts
removed) with some oil and salt well. Put them in
a roasting pan and roast in the oven at 400 degrees
for about 1 hour. Remove the pheasants and put
into a stock pot and barely cover with water. Set
the heat to medium-high. Pour some water into
the roasting pan and let that sit for a few minutes
to loosen things up. Scrape any browned bits off
the bottom of the roasting pan with a wooden
spoon and pour that into the stock pot. As soon as
the stock begins to simmer, drop the heat to low
and let this cook for 2 hours.
2. While this is simmering, drop the pheasant breasts
into the broth and let them cook for 20 minutes.
Remove them, shred the meat and set aside.
3. Fish out the pheasants and pick off all the meat
from the legs, thighs, wings and carcass. Set this
aside and return the bones to the stock pot. Add
two stalks of celery, two carrots, the smashed
garlic clove, rosemary, bay leaves and the star anise
if using. Separate the light from dark parts of the
leeks. Chop the dark green parts and add them to
the stock, and slice the white and light green parts
and set aside for the soup. If you're using onions,
4. When you're ready to make the soup, you can
do one of two things. You can set up a fine mesh
strainer over the pot you are going to make the
soup in, or you can strain your stock and use that.
To properly strain the stock, put a piece of paper
towel in the strainer and set that over a big bowl
or other large container. Ladle the stock from the
stockpot through the strainer set-up into the big
bowl. This will give you a clearer broth.
5. To finish the soup, heat the butter in a Dutch
oven or other soup pot over medium heat. Saute
the white parts of the leeks or the onion, the final
two celery stalks and carrots until soft and translucent,
but not browned. This should take about
5-8 minutes. Add the vermouth and let this boil
for a minute or two, then add the bay leaf and
about 4-8 cups of the stock you just made. Let
this simmer very gently.
6. To cook the noodles you can drop them into
your soup, which is fine but it will make the
broth cloudy. Or you can boil your noodles in
some salty water and add them later. I boil mine
separately because I like clear broth.
7. While the noodles are cooking, return all the
picked-over pheasant meat and the shredded
breast meat to the soup. Add salt and black pepper
to taste. When the noodles are ready, add the
parsley and serve.
Wyoming Wildlife | 13
http://www.honest-food.net
October 2024

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