MM4J

Grouse October 6, 2009

Last week the gamekeeper’s wife arrived on the doorstep and gave me two grouse still warm from the shoot.

You folks out there perhaps cook grouse all the time but I never had, it’s one of those mystical expensive sounding dishes, like lobster and truffles, that I’ve been too miserly to procure. My mistake. So much excitement. I was going to have to pluck and draw them – another thing I’d not done before.

Three days’ hanging later and I was in the kitchen blowing feathers off my Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. This is where the multimedia comes in. Whittingstall’s plucking instructions worked fine but it was a bit of a mess, and I wondered if YouTube could help. Now I know what I want for Christmas.

See. That’s what makes America great. Daring to dream.

I was also up to my knuckles in innards (It has never ceased to amaze me just how copious innards can be), and as you might be reading this at breakfast time I’m not embedding any video of that.

It was all worth it. They weren’t young birds, so they were pot roasted slowly in port, orange juice and grated rind, sultanas and chicken stock. A proper red. Joy and wonder. The gamekeeper’s wife is coming back with a boxful soon, I’ll try roasting a couple. And it’s inspired me to look out the air rifle. A rabbit and a couple of those pigeons that settle on our front lawn will look good in a game pie.