Shara Thomas

Eating Game

Game meat from wild animals is delicious, low fat and sustainable. Enhanced by the natural flavours of the animals foraged diet, game meat is generally more flavoursome than farmed meat. Cooking game can be simple and tasty, whether you’ve hunted it yourself or got it from a good butcher or game dealer like the Wild Meat Company.

Many people are put off game food which can be overly fussy - they don’t have to be! Use pheasant instead of chicken in a curry or pan fry partridge breasts for a quick weekday supper. Make a delicious rabbit ragu instead of the usual beef or treat yourself to a venison, rather than beef, steak at the weekend.

This book aims to inspire you to cook game more often and show you just how simple and delicious it can be.

Popular Game Meat

A. Pheasant: Probably the most popular and widespread game bird is pheasant. Young birds are delicious when roasted, while older birds can be casseroled, braised or pot roasted. If you’re a novice when it comes to cooking game, start with pheasant as it has a sweet, earthy flavour that isn’t overpowering.

B. Grouse: Considered by many to be the finest game bird there is. It has dark, rich red meat and an intense taste which holds up well to strong flavours. You can keep it simple and roast with lots of butter at high temperature.

C. Duck: Wild duck including mallard, pigeon and teal are available in autumn and winter but it’s mallard that you are most likely to come across. Wild duck has a richness that lends itself to a variety of dishes, with less fat and a stronger flavour than farmed duck.

D. Goose: Wild goose has a rich dark meat and gives off a strong fragrance while cooking. Butchers and game dealers are not allowed to sell wild goose so if you want to try one, you’ll either have to shoot your own or be given one by someone who has!

E. Venison: With lean low fat meat, venison is an increasingly popular alternative to other red meats. Wild venison has an edge over farmed having dark red meat with rich flavour resulting from its varied, natural diet. The different species of deer vary in flavour and texture, with fallow being finer textured than the mighty red, while the tiny muntjac has the mildest flavour.

F. Rabbit: Wild rabbit is one of the tastiest and most abundant game meats there is and we should eat more of it! It is very low fat. People liken it to chicken but in fact wild rabbit is stronger flavoured with a darker meat. Young rabbits can be roasted whole

and the meat torn off, older ones (the best indicator is size) can be tougher and are better braised or slow cooked in a stew or curry.