Who’s game for a grouse lunch?

If you’ve never cooked game before, start small, recommends Angela Hartnett, with a classic bird and all the trimmings

The first time I cooked grouse was at The Connaught. With a background in Italian cuisine, I’d never prepared it before in my life. It was fascinating to learn about classic British game dishes and the game season. That’s when I discovered the crisscrossed, crispy game chips, sliced at an angle and traditionally eaten as a side to roasted game birds or strong-tasting meat (and delicious just as a snack). The problem is that once you make them, they’re so moreish that you just want to eat them all – but it’s worth making the effort, because they look so impressive.

Grouse is something you can’t get all year around in this country (the season is from Aug 12, dubbed the Glorious Twelfth, until Dec 10), so now is a great time to enjoy it. London restaurants Rules in Covent Garden, Corrigan’s (famous for grouse pies) and 45 Jermyn Street in Mayfair and The Harwood Arms in Fulham are the places to go for game dishes, but there’s no reason not to recreate the classics in the kitchen at home. I buy oven-ready wild game birds from Scottish supplier Braehead Foods for my restaurants, but many high street butchers sell game from local estates. The chefs and food writers Simon Hopkinson and Mark Hix really know how to cook their wild birds, so at this time of year I scour their cookbooks and recipes for inspiration.

What I like so much about this rich, autumnal weekend lunch of roast grouse, game chips, bread sauce and creamed cabbage is the tradition and the familiarity of it.

Grouse is a lean, dark meat, with a stronger flavour than chicken but not too gamy; and the pepperiness of watercress and the neutrality of the bread sauce with roast grouse is a time-honoured combination that doesn’t need to be messed around with or deconstructed (that said, if you wanted, you could opt for braised red cabbage made the day before to give you one less thing to do, or serve simple sautéed potatoes instead of the game chips). They’re small birds, so one grouse is ideal for one person – you’re unlikely to have any leftovers, but you might want to keep the carcasses for soups, stocks and broths.