Cooking game - can anyone who is good at this give me some tips?

[Kathyis12feethighandbites]

Because I am rubbish.
I have produced stinking rabbit, rubber duck, dry pheasant and partridge swimming in fat.
Does anyone else find it really hard to make game taste nice?

No advice but am watching with interest as I'd like to get into cooking game a bit more. The only time I cooked a duck it was awful, all skin and bone but probably my fault for buying a cheapo supermarket one.

Yeah I'm wondering if it's all in the buying, ProfYaffle - I think that was the problem with the rabbit (will never again buy anything from dodgy looking man standing behind trestle table on very edge of farmers' market looking furtive).
Trouble is it seems to apply no matter where I get it from - though actually I've never got it from a supermarket and was actually wondering if supermarket game would be better. Maybe not then!

you really need to buy game from a decent butcher as it will have been hung for the right time for good flavour and you can get advice on cooking times.

i've cooked pigeon, duck, pheasant and rabbit with no problems

You'd think Farmer's Market rabbit would be OK, or I would anyway. We're lucky enough to have several good butchers in town plus a specialist game retailer a bit further afield, might have to ask them though I do feel like an idiot asking for stuff I know nothing about.

I think pheasants are complicated aren't they? I've read my Hugh FW book and their age and gender affects the taste and therefore how you cook it.

The partridge & pheasant were both specialist game retailer, the duck was someone at the farmer's market who does lamb & mutton and just happened to have shot some ducks on their land.
So, yes, that may have been the issue there. I have never actually got it from our butcher - not sure if they sell it but I guess I should ask, as they are excellent at everything else.
Maybe I should have asked the pheasant seller more about it!

I thought you meant as in playing a game.

Is duck supposed to hang? If so I don't imagine someone who's just happened to shoot them would have done so. I think asking the pheasant seller for some advice on how to cook is a good idea. Hugh says older pheasants are dry if you roast them.

LOL BIWI.

I thought the lamb people would know what they were doing with game, just because they were farmers.
I did bard the pheasant with plentiful streaky bacon.

my dad goes shooting all the time for pheasant, it all hangs outside the back door and i'm sure he has no idea how old they are.

they mostly get made into stews. don't roast it very often as they don't have much meat on.

not sure if duck has to hang as dad has never managed to shoot one.

most butchers would sell game in the winter, our local one has started selling squirrel!!

Maybe it's easier to get good results stewing? Perhaps I should do that next time.

I just realised I should have asked our plumber when he was here earlier today - he's going out beating with his dad this w/e!

Prof Yaffle, do you live in a farming area and feel like there is game everywhere, or do you want to cook it because you just like it?

Don't hang any water birds - something to do with microbes.

Pheasant: just take out the breasts, no need to pluck.

Ducks (rubber buck hahaha roast carefully as they may dry out, not as plump as farmed ones but more flavoursome.

Rabbit: stew slowly with wine and bacon and veg till meat falls off the bones.

You have to have a licence to sell game, btw.

Rubber DUCK!! argh

Game pie mmmmmm

Agree hugh FW is your man to look to.

here get it for xmas

Kathy - I do live in a farming area but don't know anyone personally who shoots (though, oddly, dd2's nursery organises pheasant shoots!) I think I just feel like it's one of those skills I never mastered and would quite like to try.

Melted, "Pheasant: just take out the breasts, no need to pluck." aren't the feathers a bit hard to swallow?

I have it
Have used it so much that the spine fell off and we had to mend it with gaffer tape.
All the non-game things I have made from it are succulent and delicious.

Furtive rabbit selling man very probably did not have licence.

Thanks for tips

With duck you need the best quality you can get and cook it incredibly simply, just seared in a very hot pan.

I once bought pigeon breasts - never again - it tasted like little lumps of baby poo.

Was furtive rabbit man like the poacher in withnail and I?

I reckon try a pie as drying out etc less of an issue

No, he was Goth/biker type, standing there with Goth/biker type woman.

Actually come to think of it I did do pigeon breasts once, and they were ok taste-wise, just a bit chewy.

So - pies/stews a safer bet than roasting, you reckon?

I reckon

Plus they're lush.

I wouldn't put duck in though - that's for roasting IMO but I do usually manage to dry it out a bit

Just made a successful venison pie . Farmed deer though, so maybe it doesn't count.
Now I have a pack of 4 pigeon breasts which I was inveigled into buying from the lamb people who sold me the rubber duck - hmmmmm....

Pot roasting pheasant should prevent it from drying out. I use about 1/4 pint of chicken stock, a large onion, a couple of sticks of celery and a couple of carrots or a parsnip. All those juices will keep things nice and moist.

Rabbit is not game, but vermin, so game licence not required. The same applies to pigeon I think.

Thanks Silverwoodhelpdesk. That sounds doable.