Game Cookery

Eat healthy with Tim Maddams’ half-hour, one-pan lunch of grouse breasts given some extra zing with herbs and chopped grapefruit

Sometimes you throw a dish together and the results are average at best. Often this can easily be remedied by growing a few herbs and vegetables if you have the space, getting on to the hill to walkup a few grouse or heading to the woods to find a few chanterelles. My huntergatherer friends even supplied a grapefruit recently — although I didn’t ask where they ‘foraged’ that from.

These odd ingredients, brought together simply and added to a few kitchen must-haves — good olive oil, quality sea salt and capers — mean you are ready to rustle up a fine lunch. This is far from your average grouse dish, but what better way to celebrate this wonderful time of the season than to select some of its finest offerings and put them together simply, cleanly and with little fuss.

Cooking the grouse takes judgement. I have used a mixture of old and young skin-off breasts here; the old birds need a little more cooking and a longer rest than the young, sweet and tender birds.

Depending on the age of the grouse, you will need to use a little judgement of

“Old birds need a little more cooking and a longer rest than young and tender birds”

your own, but cook the grouse breasts until they firm up, then rest them while you prepare the mushrooms.

Best enjoyed with a robust white wine.