Post by minesamojito on Nov 1, 2012 18:53:00 GMT
Dear readers, I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine called Angus, who is a real Scottish Country Gentleman. When he bought in a couple of slices a wonderful tasting Game Pie to work, and showed me the pics of the whole pie, I asked if he’d be interested in sharing how he made it with me, and everyone who reads the blog. So without further ado here is Angus.
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First off a big thank you to Marcus for allowing me to appear as a guest on his excellent blogsite. Since meeting the big guy through work I’ve both tried out and been inspired by the recipes and food photography here on Countrywoodsmoke. As I’ve just discovered, writing a recipe up and getting good pictures is an even greater challenge…
I’m a keen cook who is fortunate enough to live in the wilds of Scotland, and with the opportunity to satisfy my hunter-gatherer instincts right on my doorstep, the pursuit of deer, game and wild salmon for the table is a growing passion of mine. Cooking and eating animals I’ve studied, observed, stalked, shot or caught, killed, skinned, and butchered is incredibly satisfying and a huge contrast to buying sanitised, shrink wrapped portions from major supermarkets. I’m not out to preach – if you want to read about the ethical and moral arguments for doing what I do, I can recommend the chapter on game in Hugh Fearley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Cookbook.
As we are entering the winter season and with snow already falling, I’ve been thinking more of high calorie food to ward of the cold – stews, pies and thick tasty soups, and with a freezer full of venison and some fresh rabbit and pheasant, I really fancied a go at a proper Game Pie. I spent a while on the internet researching a recipe for what I had in mind and found this excellent one by Delia, written well before she started advocating tinned mince and lobster bisque soup! -
www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/old-fashioned-raised-game-pie.html, not to be confused with her ‘Easy Game Pie’ which was written at the same time as the first two recipes I mentioned! Being Scottish I swapped the brandy for a 10 year old Aberlour Malt, which has a slight toffee flavour and also dropped the mace, which is not my favourite spice. I loved the fact that this was a ‘proper’ recipe – two days in the making and everything made from scratch – the jellied stock, the hot water pastry, the pork forcemeat and the port & whisky marinade all presented challenges and had the taste-buds tingling before I’d even warmed up the oven!
I didn’t get the presentation quite perfect and there are things I could do better next time, but the flavours won’t improve as the pie was tastier than I would have imagined – If you have the ingredients and the time, I’d really recommend this recipe as a triumph of traditional cooking.
The finished product in the photo above – lovely layering of venison, rabbit and pheasant chunks and the tasty pork forcemeat with a little rim of jellied game stock. My crusty pastry collapsed a bit but tasted just as nice!
Thanks Angus
