Recipe with The Pheasant

IN 2006 James and Diana Donoghue gave this bird new flight. The 500-year-old building has since been attractively renovated throughout. The couple also own and run their own smokery, The Borley Smokery, and this year they have enhanced The Pheasant further with five new luxury bedrooms. If you’d like to make a night of it, you can wake up to stunning views of the countryside.

Ingredients
For the partridges
4 partridges
2 pints of good cider
2 onions
3 gloves of garlic
2 sprigs of rosemary
1 pint of chicken stock or vegetable stock

For the vegetables
1 red onion
2 small parsnips
2 beetroot, cooked
(do not use pickled)
2 carrots
½ swede
¼ celeriac
2 medium-sized potatoes
Rape seed oil for roasting

Method
To prepare your partridges, wash inside of the birds and place in a deep-sided roasting dish, add cider, stock, onions, garlic and rosemary. Place the lid on the dish and seal with foil. Put in the oven on Gas Mark 4/180ºc for 3 hours. Now remove the birds from the roasting dish and drain the stock into a separate pan.
To prepare the vegetables, peel and prepare vegetables into 2 cm squares and batons. Place all the vegetables, except the beetroot, in the roasting tin and lightly oil the dish, tossing and coating the vegetables.
Season and roast for 30 minutes and then add beetroot and roast for a further 10 minutes. When adding the beetroot, place the partridge back in the oven to brown and roast.
While the vegetables are roasting, remove the fat from the drained stock and reduce the liquid down to about one-third of its volume. Season as required.
When ready to serve, place your partridge on a bed of roasted root vegetables and pour over the reduced stock.

Get the taste
The Pheasant
Church Street
Gestingthorpe
C09 3AU
01787 461196