Name: Pheasant, Chestnut and Chanterelle Soup
Yield: Serves 6—8
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 30 g plain flour; 40 g butter; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; 150 g chanterelles, cleaned; salt and freshly ground black pepper; 2 litres chicken stock (or 2 good stock cubes dissolved in the same amount of hot water); 1 small leek, roughly chopped and washed; 1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped; a few sprigs of thyme; 2-3 tablespoons double cream; 1 oven-ready pheasant; a glass of white wine; 16-18 fresh chestnuts in the shell

Preparation info

Serves
6—8

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

British Seasonal Food

By Mark Hix

Published 2008

About

I must confess that pheasant is probably my least favourite of the game birds. It has a tendency to dry out in the oven before you know it and can be very disappointing. It must either be timed to perfection or slow cooked. Using pheasant in a soup like this, however, gets around the problem - and one bird goes a long way. You can prepare the soup base, roast the chestnuts and get everything together the day before, ready to reheat and assemble everything just before serving.