Pheasant Mushroom Soup

Pheasant Mushroom Soup. It’s creamy, hearty, and filling. I love a bowl of it on a cold evening, but even more so on an evening after a long day of pheasant hunting! Or deer hunting. Or elk hunting. Or even just afternoon of hunting around Netflix for new show to binge on a cold Saturday. Anyway, the point is, this is an amazing soup!

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Pheasant Mushroom Soup

Pheasant hunting in Utah has been, ummm, I will say interesting for the last few years. Years ago, the state carried a healthy population of pheasants. My dad told me he remembered as a young boy standing in a line of hunters and dogs, anxiously waiting for the pheasant season to officially open. The clock hit 8:00 am and the entire line moved across the field, attempting to kick up roosters, and fill their bag limit of two birds.

Since then, the bird population has struggled. Multiple factors play into this decline, including habitat destruction, predation on birds, tough winters, and more. In southeastern Utah, where I live, the population has almost completely disappeared. There may be a few lone birds out in the once popular hunting areas, but I wouldn’t even go searching for them in fear that if I did find a rooster, I was taking the very last one.

The state department of wildlife has addressed the decline and implemented a release program for pen-raised roosters. During the pheasant season, they release about 10,000 birds over 54 different hunting areas throughout the state. The program has made it possible to hunt pheasant again around the entire state of Utah, which has been great!

Anyway, politics aside! Let’s make Pheasant Mushroom Soup

The Mushroom Stock

You could easily add vegetable or chicken stock to this recipe if you wanted. You could even probably find a mushroom stock at most grocery stores but making your own is really quick and easy. The few steps it takes to make a quick homemade mushroom stock really adds to the depth of flavor for your soup, so if you have the ingredients, I recommend this step.

In a small saucepan, add all the stems from your mushrooms. Cover with water, about four cups. 

Also add in a few, like two, roughly chopped up carrots, a little celery, some onion, and a bay leaf.  Season with a little salt and let reduce over medium low heat for at least thirty minutes.

Strain out all the solid and reserve the liquid for your pheasant mushroom soup.

The Pheasant Mushroom Soup

To help ensure that the pheasant is tender and easily shreds, I poach it first. In a large pot, I add enough water to cover the pheasant, which is still just on the bone at this point and poach it for one hour.

For poaching, add enough water to cover all the pheasant and bring the water to a boil. Once the water is boiling, place a lid on the pot, reduce the pot to a simmer over low heat and let the poaching begin.

I just use water for poaching because the mushroom soup is going to add all the flavor to the pheasant. You could use vegetable or chicken stock to poach in, but it is almost a waste of stock. This was a hard tactic for me to follow at first, in my bones I felt like I needed to flavor the pheasant while poaching. But I resisted! And saved my stock for another day.

Once the pheasant is finished poaching, you can shred it into bite size pieces and set aside for adding to the mushroom soup.

In a dutch oven or heavy bottomed pot, melt two tablespoons of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Once the butter is melted, add the minced shallot and diced leeks, and cook for two or three minutes. Add your diced carrots, and add all the sliced mushrooms at this point, being sure to stir and coat the mushrooms in the oil and let cook down for ten minutes.

The mushrooms should be browned and softened by this point.

Sprinkle a little flour over the cooked mushrooms. This will be how we thicken the soup. A quarter of a cup should be good enough. Next, deglaze the pan with a half cup of marsala wine. I really liked the marsala wine in this recipe because it has kind of a sweet, musky flavor that dances wonderfully with the mushroom flavor. Let it simmer to cut some of the alcohol out and the develop the flavor of the mushrooms, maybe three to five minutes.

Now, add in your homemade mushroom broth! If you don’t have time to make your own mushroom stock, you can add vegetable or chicken stock at this point. Some homemade pheasant stock would also be fantastic!

Okay, now stir in your pheasant meat and let this pot gently boil for twenty minutes. No need to have a little jetted hot tub going on, just a gentle rolling boil will do.

Alright, we are almost done! I know you’re getting hungry! Add the can of coconut cream and a tablespoon of minced rosemary. Season to taste with a little salt and pepper. Let it warm on medium low heat for a little bit, just to give the mushroom flavor a little more time to infiltrate your pheasant and tango with the coconut cream.

Serve up piping hot bowls with some crusty bread and you will be one happy eater! Enjoy!

Happy Hunting!

Homemade Pheasant Stock

"Be worthy of your game." ~ George Bird Evans

Learning to process game meat has been an eye opening experience.  It is a challenging and ever-evolving labor.  Cleaning a harvest is different, not only for different groups of animals, but even for different species within a specific subgroup of animals.  For example, it is obvious that a fish is cleaned differently than a duck, but it isn't always obvious that a duck may be cleaned differently than a goose, or even another species of duck. Cleaning also varies on how you plan to prepare or use the animal.  I feel I have only touched on the surface of cleaning animals.

Cleaning is just the beginning step of processing game meat too.  Storing and preserving meat is an entirely different story.  And not to mention learning how to use different parts of the animal! We often hear stories of how Native Americans used every part of an animal. Meat was obviously processed and eaten, but hides or feathers were used for shelter creation or clothing, bones could be constructed into tools or weapons, and tendons or sinew could be used to create thread or string.  Of course, those few examples only brush on the surface of how many parts of an animal are useful.

Utilizing the entire animal was definitely a survival tactic for Native Americans, and as a modern day hunter, that drive for survival isn't quite the same.  However, many hunters strive to use as much of an animal as possible.  Whether this desire comes from a simple curiosity as to what you can come up with to use what you have at hand, or is from a deeper desire to use every part of the animal as a form of respect, there are limitless possibilities on what to create or how to utilize an animal in its entirety, and it is definitely a learning process.

So, while this might be a small step in terms of all the possible things I could use a pheasant for, it is a first step and I enjoyed trying something new with a different part of the bird.  After cleaning all the meat from the pheasant, I saved the carcass and made a simple pheasant stock.  While I was excited to find a use for the leftover bones of my pheasant harvest, my primary drive for creating a pheasant stock developed from a nagging feeling I got when using chicken stock in my pheasant recipes.  For some reason, it bothered me when I would create a soup or sauce recipe for my pheasant meal, but had to use chicken stock as the base.  It seemed silly. So, I made a small batch of pheasant stock from the carcass and can now use that as the base for whatever pheasant recipe I work on next.

For the stock, a few simple ingredients are necessary to help develop a deeper flavor profile.  Aside from the pheasant carcass, you will need carrots, celery, and onion.  I used around four medium sized carrots, three stalks of celery, and two medium sized onions.  You could also add a few cloves of garlic.  To create a little uniqueness in my stock, I also added in a four inch piece of whole ginger root.

Preheat the oven to 400 Fahrenheit and roast the pheasant carcass, celery, carrots, onion, and ginger root for 20 minutes.  There is no need to cut anything up or do any type of prep work before roasting.  The only step I took was the cut the onions in half.  I did not peel the carrots or even remove the onion skin.  If I had added garlic to this stock, I would have roasted the cloves whole as well.

Once the vegetables and pheasant are done roasting, transfer everything to a large pot.  I did remove some of the skin from the ginger root before adding it to the pot, but that was about it.  I left the onions whole and broke the celery in half so it would fit in the pot, but other than that not much work to be done!  At this point, toss in a couple of bay leaves and add enough water to the pot to cover everything by about two inches.  The amount of water needed will vary based on the size of your pot, but it should be somewhere between eight and twelve cups.  I used ten for my pot.  Heat the pot over a medium heat and watch until the water starts to boil.  Once it boils, cover the pot and reduce the heat to a simmer.  Let the stock simmer for a few hours, checking occasionally to make sure there is still enough liquid in the pot and that the pot is still just simmering and not boiling.  I let my stock simmer for about four hours.  The liquid reduced from ten cups to eight by the end of the cooking time.

If you are interested in creating a little bit of a different flavor profile for your pheasant stock, instead of using onions you could substitute leeks.  You could also add fennel for a hint of licorice.  Herbs can also be infused into the stock, such as thyme, sage, or basil.  Strain the entire pot through a fine mesh colander, and discard all the vegetables and carcass.  Allow the liquid to cool.  In the end, the stock should be a beautiful auburn color and have a mild savory flavor.

I plan on using my stock within the next couple of days, so I poured it into mason jars and stuck it in the fridge.  It should last in the fridge for about five days.  Canning the stock is another option; however the process for cooking is a bit different.  I prefer to freeze homemade stock that I am not going to use.  I put it in a large Tupperware container and just pop it in the freezer.  It will last indefinitely in the freezer.

This stock has a hint of the richness from the pheasant bones and also a clean, fresh taste from the vegetables.  It is not salty, which took me a minute to get used to.  When using store bought chicken stock, the stock is salted and, for me, that is the main flavor that stands out.  This pheasant stock is a base starting point for any sauces, broths, or soups you might create with it.  Think of the stock as a building block that will enhance and develop flavor in your dish.  This recipe allows you to extract the umami (one of the five basic tastes) to use as an ingredient from a bird carcass or other bones.  It also gives a little more reward to yourself and the animal that provided for you.

Happy Hunting!