‘I got this recipe from someone I know': Eight years before he served it at the Omani State Banquet, The King revealed his favourite food to Country Life

‘I got this recipe [for pheasant crumble pie] from someone I know,' wrote HM The King in a November 2018 issue of Country Life, which he guest edited.

'It is delicious. I invented a grouse one recently, Coq au Vin with Grouse, as well as Moussaka with Grouse (it doesn’t always have to be lamb), in other words Groussaka!’

At the time, we asked John Williams, one of the top Michelin Star chefs in the UK, whose career began with a bag of grouse to make it. ‘I’d just been taken on as an apprentice at The Percy Arms in Northumberland and they wanted me to pluck and gut them,’ The Ritz’s executive chef remembered.

‘It was the first thing I had ever touched in a professional kitchen. I come from a seaside town, so I was much more used to fish and I’d definitely never encountered that aroma before,’ he said. ‘But, you know, today, it’s one of my favourite smells. Come the Glorious Twelfth, I’m outside that door anxiously waiting for the birds to arrive.’

Nearly a decade has passed, but pheasant is seemingly still one of The King's favourite foods. Earlier this week, he served pot-roasted Windsor pheasant with spiced quince during the state banquet for the Sultan of Oman, Haitham bin Tarik.

The official pheasant shooting season runs from October 1 to February 1 (January 31 in Northern Ireland), with peak activity occurring late October through December. Birds are available from all good butchers.

Read on to discover how to make pheasant crumble pie, according to The King's own recipe.

Ingredients

For the stock

• 1 pheasant
• 1 medium onion, cut into a medium dice
• 1 large carrot, cut into a large dice
• 4 sticks of celery, cut into quarters
• 2 bay leaves
• Large sprig of thyme
• 6 juniper berries
• 4 peppercorns
• Splash of sherry

For the roux

• 40g butter
• 40g plain flour
• 290ml pheasant stock
• Dash of cream
• Chopped parsley and thyme
• Seasoning

For the crumble

• 170g butter
• 56g white breadcrumbs
• 28g finely grated Parmesan
• 2 smoked streaky-bacon rashers

Method

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To make the stock, place the whole pheasant in a large saucepan and cover with water. Add all the other ingredients, except the sherry, and cover with a cartouche of baking paper.

Bring to the boil, then turn down to a slow simmer and cook for about 30 minutes, before checking — just inside the leg — that the bird is just cooked.

Next, turn off the heat and leave it in the water for 10 minutes, then remove the bird and cover it with foil.

Bring the poaching liquor back to the boil, reduce until it’s flavoursome, then strain or pass it through a sieve.

In a clean pan, add the sherry and reduce until syrupy, then add the strained poaching liquor and reduce to about 600ml.

Next, make a thick roux by melting the butter in a pan, adding the sieved flour and mixing to a paste. Cook the roux for several minutes, then gradually start adding the pheasant stock, stirring all the time, until it becomes a thick sauce. Add the chopped herbs and cream, then check for seasoning.

Remove the breasts from the pheasant, shred them by pulling the meat lengthways between two forks, add to the sauce and keep warm.

Finally, to make the crumble topping, melt the butter in a frying pan, add the breadcrumbs and stir constantly until they are golden and crispy. Turn them on to kitchen paper to soak up the excess butter and add the Parmesan cheese.

Next, cook the bacon rashers until they are crispy enough to crumble into medium fine pieces and add them to the breadcrumbs.

Place the pheasant and sauce mixture into a pie dish, sprinkle with the crumble and finish in the oven at 180˚C/350˚F/gas mark four until heated through.