Recipe - Pot Roast Pheasant Wrapped In Pancetta

2 tablespoon Pitted green olives
Salt and freshly ground
black pepper
1 Brace ovenready pheasants
A few sprigs of thyme
60 g Unsalted butter
1 Pig's trotter; cut into 4
thin
; slices
1 Onion
1 small Celeriac
1 Bottle red wine; (Rhone
would be
; excellent)
150 ml Amontillado sherry
2 Fresh bay leaves
1 Cinnamon stick; broken into
pieces
Pancetta or streaky bacon;
rind removed

Preheat oven to 200c/gas 6. Soak olives in water to remove saltiness.
Season pheasants. Insert a few tiny sprigs of thyme into the breast using
the point of a small knife. Melt butter in a large frying pan and sear
pheasants on all sides. Remove pheasants from pan and set to one side.

Sear pig's trotter pieces in pan. Chop onion and celeriac and add to pan.
Brown slightly with trotter. Add red wine and sherry to pan and bring to
boil. Cook for 10 minutes to drive off alcohol.

Pour contents of pan into roasting tin. Drain olives and rinse. Add olives
to roasting tin with bay leaves and cinnamon stick. Place pheasants on top
of trotters and vegetables, breast side down, and roast in preheated oven
for 25 minutes.

Remove roasting tin from oven. Sit pheasant breast side up and cover
breasts with pancetta or bacon. Baste well. Return pheasants to oven to
complete cooking. This will take between 20 minutes for younger birds and
50 minutes for much older birds. Test by inserting a skewer into thickest
part of thigh juices should run clear when pheasants are cooked through.
Remove cinnamon stick and bay leaves.

Remove pheasants, trotter and olives and keep warm. Place roasting tin on
hob and reduce juices by boiling if necessary. Press sauce through a sieve
into a clean pan. Heat gently while whisking to give a rich, gelatinous
sauce. Season if necessary.

Remove breasts by cutting down either side of the breast bones and working
the knife along the rib cage. Cut off legs and thighs at hip joints. Serve
breast and leg to each person with a piece of trotter; mashed potatoes with
olive oil and a good dollop of crabapple jelly.

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