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She was young and foolish. Or maybe just suicidal, in the throes of a cruel teen age. The fact remains that, although my husband did all he could to avoid her, she ran into his car. That is that my friends: she turned around and slammed into metal with a dull “bang”; all the better to hide the noise of her young and foolish neck snapping off in the act.
He came back to the car, carrying her body in one hand. She was that young, all feet and feathers, barely a pheasant. We gave her an undignified body bag – a plastic pouch from a nearby supermarket - plotting about doing away with the evidence already.
Fowl pie? Pâté chasseur? Meatballs?
But she was too small and most of us were Italians so it had to be just pappardelle in the end.
Nobody would touch her.
Nobody had a clue.
Half a dozen Italians and not a single one had any idea of how to cook the beast, let alone pluck her.
They turned around as one and stared, the implication “You are the cook. You do it.” lying thick in the air. And right enough, I cook but I had never plucked a bird before.
Five days later and the pappardelle prepared and gone, I must admit this is still true.
A friendly neighbour passed about the body bag to an old extended member of the family. No questions asked, apart from when did we need to have it back. The lesser said the better: we were outside the gaming season after all. Yes, we could claim it was an accident but a body is a body is a body: the Corpo Forestale would soon cry blue murder.
She came back naked, her frail body having undergone an unsightly – if handy – post mortem, a few crucial part excised and disposed off separately. Not in a canopic urn, I'd venture. If the lady who did dress her down for burial was as savvy as I make her, the missing bits would become both.
I decided our little pheasant's wake would be a drinking one and prepared the marinade.
A bottle of white wine (Trebbiano d' Abruzzo)
A large bay leaf (Plucked from a nearby bush)
A carrot sliced.
A small onion quartered.
A few black peppercorns
A few juniper berries (crushed for flavour)
It took a long simmer and letting the wine cool again. While you do not normally have to do this – it is time consuming - I prefer this process as it lends more taste to the marinade-
Then the body was slipped into a small covered dish and left to bathe all night long, while we sand a few dirges and enjoyed a little wine in the departing evening light.
In the morning, she was cooked in her nightly juices.. One hour at roughly 150C. Then turned and cooked another hour.
Young and foolish she might have been but – true to her race – she was a tough bird. We'd not let her hang, off course – in that heat! - and that did not help. But no worries. I knew her flesh would relent in the end, the was all flesh eventually does, so went about skinning and shredding the meat into small pieces.
he marinade was filtered and – having discarded the leaf, peppercorns and berries, I sliced the onion and carrot into small bits.
Olive oil was sizzling in the pan and hissed furiously when I fed it the wet onion slices. A quick cover soon smothered the protest – it the kitchen as in politics censorship comes in handy – and after a while I added a small table spoon if flour, stirring it with a wooden spoon to coat the flour evenly in oil. Then poured the marinade over it and stirred some more to avoid any collusion. No rioting on my watch. No unsightly clump or lump. This would go down smoothly.
When it was a smooth sauce, I added the carrot and meat. Gave everything a through toss and tasted. Too bland. Too acid. So out came the salt and pepper. The sugar. The tomato paste. The nutmeg. I think at some point I even added a trifle (a scare table spoon) of balsamic vinegar.
All I know is that, in the additional hour cooking time, I kept on tasting and adding this or that. Until it was perfect, the wine still present but tame, the sauce balanced, reduced to a creamy consistency and our foolish hen's flesh finally tender and forgiving.
Just in time for the pappardelle to be tossed in the salted boiling water for a few minutes (they were fresh made, straight from Spinosi – no less – and required a scant three minutes to be ready.
Then the pasta and sauce mingled, the little pheasant coming into her own in the end, for the delight of all around the table (minus my dear mother-in-law's who does not eat much in the way of flesh and avoids game – although she likes a hand of card well enough).
We toasted our feathery friend's departure in dignity – mopping the sauce with shreds of foccaccia all the while – and a Rosso Piceno full of promises.
Requiem...
He came back to the car, carrying her body in one hand. She was that young, all feet and feathers, barely a pheasant. We gave her an undignified body bag – a plastic pouch from a nearby supermarket - plotting about doing away with the evidence already.
Fowl pie? Pâté chasseur? Meatballs?
But she was too small and most of us were Italians so it had to be just pappardelle in the end.
Nobody would touch her.
Nobody had a clue.
Half a dozen Italians and not a single one had any idea of how to cook the beast, let alone pluck her.
They turned around as one and stared, the implication “You are the cook. You do it.” lying thick in the air. And right enough, I cook but I had never plucked a bird before.
Five days later and the pappardelle prepared and gone, I must admit this is still true.
A friendly neighbour passed about the body bag to an old extended member of the family. No questions asked, apart from when did we need to have it back. The lesser said the better: we were outside the gaming season after all. Yes, we could claim it was an accident but a body is a body is a body: the Corpo Forestale would soon cry blue murder.
She came back naked, her frail body having undergone an unsightly – if handy – post mortem, a few crucial part excised and disposed off separately. Not in a canopic urn, I'd venture. If the lady who did dress her down for burial was as savvy as I make her, the missing bits would become both.
I decided our little pheasant's wake would be a drinking one and prepared the marinade.
A bottle of white wine (Trebbiano d' Abruzzo)
A large bay leaf (Plucked from a nearby bush)
A carrot sliced.
A small onion quartered.
A few black peppercorns
A few juniper berries (crushed for flavour)
It took a long simmer and letting the wine cool again. While you do not normally have to do this – it is time consuming - I prefer this process as it lends more taste to the marinade-
Then the body was slipped into a small covered dish and left to bathe all night long, while we sand a few dirges and enjoyed a little wine in the departing evening light.
In the morning, she was cooked in her nightly juices.. One hour at roughly 150C. Then turned and cooked another hour.
Young and foolish she might have been but – true to her race – she was a tough bird. We'd not let her hang, off course – in that heat! - and that did not help. But no worries. I knew her flesh would relent in the end, the was all flesh eventually does, so went about skinning and shredding the meat into small pieces.
he marinade was filtered and – having discarded the leaf, peppercorns and berries, I sliced the onion and carrot into small bits.
Olive oil was sizzling in the pan and hissed furiously when I fed it the wet onion slices. A quick cover soon smothered the protest – it the kitchen as in politics censorship comes in handy – and after a while I added a small table spoon if flour, stirring it with a wooden spoon to coat the flour evenly in oil. Then poured the marinade over it and stirred some more to avoid any collusion. No rioting on my watch. No unsightly clump or lump. This would go down smoothly.
When it was a smooth sauce, I added the carrot and meat. Gave everything a through toss and tasted. Too bland. Too acid. So out came the salt and pepper. The sugar. The tomato paste. The nutmeg. I think at some point I even added a trifle (a scare table spoon) of balsamic vinegar.
All I know is that, in the additional hour cooking time, I kept on tasting and adding this or that. Until it was perfect, the wine still present but tame, the sauce balanced, reduced to a creamy consistency and our foolish hen's flesh finally tender and forgiving.
Just in time for the pappardelle to be tossed in the salted boiling water for a few minutes (they were fresh made, straight from Spinosi – no less – and required a scant three minutes to be ready.
Then the pasta and sauce mingled, the little pheasant coming into her own in the end, for the delight of all around the table (minus my dear mother-in-law's who does not eat much in the way of flesh and avoids game – although she likes a hand of card well enough).
We toasted our feathery friend's departure in dignity – mopping the sauce with shreds of foccaccia all the while – and a Rosso Piceno full of promises.
Requiem...