And so began our education on the topic of cooking and eating game.
Throughout the season, almost every Sunday afternoon we would come home to find something hanging from the door handle. A brace of pheasant. A bagful of wood pigeons. Half a dozen rabbits. Or, best of all, a hare or a couple of woodcock.
The first time this happened, we discovered a brace of pheasant outside the door. Complete with feathers, insides and the like. We both stared at them for a few minutes - while logically we knew that just-shot birds came with all the aforementioned, I think we had both fondly imagined that the feathers would just drop off automatically! So we stared at them for a little longer and then boldly decided to hang them in the cellar for a bit.
I am not keen on very high game so after a couple of days I decided that Something Had To Be Done. R came home from work that day to find me sitting in the (empty) bath, having donned a pair of Marigold gloves, plucking away surrounded by a sea of feathers and wearing my best Margo Ledbetter face! Eventually I handed the now-denuded bird to him and announced that he could do the rest.
Armed with my well-thumbed copy of John Seymour's Complete Guide to Self-Sufficiency, we squinted over the pictures and tried to match them with the bird in R's hand. It probably took half an hour or more to finally prepare the first pheasant for eating, but we got there eventually. And so we established the division of labour that we retained until he died - I would remove the fur or feathers and cook the beast. R would do the squelchy hand-up-the-critter's-nether-regions bit.
That suited me fine.
We often received wood pigeons. In the UK they are classed as vermin, so there is no closed season for them. The first time, I foolishly sat and plucked the entire bird. Fortunately this doesn't take very long with a pigeon, but I quickly realised that the only bit on a pigeon that is worth eating is the breast, and you can simply pull the skin back and remove the meat.
Last weekend I was in the fishmonger's shop and he had a nice selection of game for sale.
Nope. I don't understand either why game should be sold by the fishmonger, rather than the butcher, but that is often the case here. And this weekend he had some nice-looking wood pigeon.
As someone else had done the messy plucking and evisceration part, I bought a couple, froze one and removed the breasts from the other. There really isn't anything else on a pigeon that is worth eating as the legs and wings are unpalatably bitter, but the carcase makes a great stock.
So, what to have with it?
The garden is starting to run down now. The only likely candidates I could find were leeks, the last of the courgettes and some peppers in the greenhouse.
But those three form the base for a very good risotto, particularly the Tromba d'Albenga courgettes which are rather more substantial than the average courgette and can stand up to cooking for a half hour or so.
Thereafter it was simple.
Cook the risotto. Heat up some butter in a frying pan and quickly sear the pigeon breasts. Two minutes on either side is enough. Remove to a warm plate for a few minutes while you add some of this year's favourite ingredient - sloe gin - to bubble away until reduced to give a small amount of a slightly sticky sauce.
Then simply assemble.
A portion of risotto. Sprinkle on some chopped parsley. Slice the pigeon breast and place on top, then pour over the reduced sauce. That's it.
This isn't a risotto that needs parmesan cheese.
