From Culinaria Spain:

quote:

In Spain, hunting is a national sport, more popular than bullfighting or football....There is scarcely any nook or cranny where hunting does not take place....The Spaniards call their country "the hunting grounds of Europe." And the heart of these hunting grounds is the Montes de Toledo, the range of hills in La Mancha, coloured dark by its stone oaks....

In earlier times, workers on the land earned a meager wage, but were able to survive by adding game to their menus. Shepherds and farmers have also made a considerable contribution to Spanish cuisine with their shotguns, traps and creative ideas....

The passage above once again demonstrates one of the fundamental common threads of nearly all worldwide cuisines: food from the land and from the people who work it and live off it. In order to do that heritage honour, I decided to try a variation on guiso de pollo, using pheasant (faisán), which is one of Spain's popular game birds.

The main component of this dish came from friends of the family who gave us two pheasants that had been bagged earlier that week. We skinned the birds and removed the breasts for another dish, leaving plenty of good meat on the bones; i had been wanting to try guiso for quite a while, and this seems like a perfect opportunity!

here's the ingredients list:

1 Whole Chicken (I used two dressed, skinned and breasted pheasants)
1 Large onion, chunked
3 Carrots finely diced
4 Medium potatoes, cut into 2” cubes
½ LB mushrooms halved
½ pint heavy cream (8oz)
1 (12oz) can tomato paste
2 Medium cans crushed tomatoes (28oz total)
1 bottle (3 cups) white wine
1 TBSP Oregano
2 TBSP salt
1 TBSP smoked paprika
2 TSP pepper
Olive Oil
Water

Method:

cover the brid with water, add a little salt and then bring the pot to a boil. reduce to medium-low and simmer for three hours, or until all the meat falls from the bones. strain the solids, reserving the broth. after the solids have cooled a bit, pick through the solids and retrieve all the meat, discarding the bones etc. set the meat aside.

Meanwhile, halve the mushrooms and chop the onion. saute both in a splash of olive oil, then add a cup of wine to de-glaze. let the liquids reduce down while dicing the carrots and potatoes. add the carrots to the onion and mushrooms; toss the potateos in a little olive oil and then put them under the broiler in the oven for a while to brown in order to add flavour and so that they hold their shape.


After de-fatting the broth, add the meat to the pot with the mushrooms, onions, carrots and potatoes. add the tomatoes and the heavy cream, then the tomato paste and the remaionder of the spices. stir well and bring to a boil, making sure the paste is evenly distributed. add the remainder of the wine and reduce heat to simmer at least two hours - it gets better the longer it simmers. serve with hot, fresh, buttered bread.


For this dish, I used a Spanish Chardonnay from Don Luciano wineries, which is located in the heart of Spain's hunting culture, La Mancha:






from the label:

quote:

this fine chardonnay, of beautiful golden colour, is the result of a careful selection of the finest grapes of the la mancha appellation. complex, elegant and sensual, this wine is rich in flavours of citrus, apples, bananas and tropical fruits. very clean, fresh and long on the finish, our chardonnay is a great match with fish, shellfish, salads and pasta, as well as other traditional mediterranean foods.

bottled by j. garcia carrion la mancha s.a. daimiel (ciudad real) españa REN CLM-437/CR

imported by shaw-ross international importers. miramar, florida

this chardonnay is the best that i have tried so far, both for cooking and for drinking - this may not be saying much, since my experiece is limited, but for the very modest price (sub-five dollars) it is impossible to beat.


while making this dish, the smells in the house were permeated with the essence of spain. the don luciano worked very well with the smoked paprika, adding to the heavenly aromas en la cocina.


pheasant is a very lean bird that tastes very similar to chicken, maybe a bit more rustic or with a little more body, and worked very well in this dish. since i had two pheasants and had to feed six people, i figured it would be good to double the recipe. the thing i didn't take into account is that pheasants have a little less meat than a chicken and also that they were breasted, which is a good portion of the meat right there. conesequently, there was a little less meat than i would prefer in this guiso; but, having said that, i am sure that many peasant households in spain had less meat than they would have wanted in their guisos as well, so it's all good - the vegetablesmade up for it quite well, i think.

i was trying to shoe-horn this in with about a dozen other projects today, so no preparation pictures, but here is a pic of the first bowl served, which went to the beautiful mrs. tas:



here's a shot that's closer, with a little too much flash as well:



note that in these pix, it is a little thin, more of a soup than a stew.

after serving this to mrs. tas, i went to help some good friends pack up for their move to the other side of the state, about 380-odd miles from here. i will miss them a lot, but they gotta go where the jobs are, and i do understand that.

later, when i came back, i sampled some of the guiso and shared some with aaron and jane. it had reduced down to a thicker, richer stew that was a nice, dark reddish-brown in colour and rich, thick and bubbly. the taste was excellent, with the tomato and carrot taking prominence and the earthy pimentón ahumado providing a subtle basso continuo underneath. i found this to be a great way to prepare pheasant and most everyone agreed. aaron and jane were impressed, as were two of the kids. the beautiful mrs. tas said that she liked it except for the occaisional small bone from the pheasant that got missed when we were picking through and getting all the meat after boiling it off the bones.

this one was a great success and i strongly recommend it to anyone wishing a wonderful poultry stew that will provide a true atmosphere of old spain. whether prepared with chicken or pheasant, it is easy, rich, delicious and filling.

I laughed at your recipe! One bottle equals three cups......must be one went missing into the cook

cheers!

isn't that how it always works?

not here, here we would start with two bottles of wine. lol.

Larry

Thanks for sharing that recipe and your experience making it. Bet I could substitute a couple of plump grouse ...

thanks man, I will give it a shot!