Recipe OF THE WEEK
SMOTHERED PHEASANT WITH APPLES, PRUNES AND BRAISED RED CABBAGE
Serves 4
100g prunes, stoned
2 pheasants
50g butter Bunch of thyme, leaves picked, plus a few sprigs
Zest of a lemon
3 small apples, quartered
2 onions, cut in wedges
FOR THE RED CABBAGE
1 tsp butter
1 onion, sliced
1 head of red cabbage, finely sliced
4–5 tart apples, sliced into half moons
6 cloves
4 crushed black peppercorns
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp redcurrant jelly
150ml red wine
1 Cover prunes with water in a small bowl and set aside while preparing the cabbage.
2 Melt the butter in your largest saucepan and fry the onion for 5 minutes. Add cabbage, apples, spices, vinegar, honey and 1 tsp sea salt. Stir, clamp on a lid and cook on a low heat for 45 minutes, stirring and checking every so often.
3 Add redcurrant jelly and red wine and cook for a further 45 minutes.
4 Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F. Spatchcock birds by removing backbones with kitchen scissors. Flatten with your hands until you hear a crack. 5 Mix butter with thyme, zest and season. 6 Place pheasants in roasting tray. Scatter apples, onion, thyme sprigs and drained prunes round them. Cover with butter.
7 Roast for 30–40 minutes, basting at least twice, until golden. Serve with the roasted apples, onions and prunes, as well as the red cabbage.
Taken from Lagom: The Swedish art of Living Harmoniously by Steffi Knowles-dellner (Quadrille). Photo: Yuki Sugiura