The perfect pheasant with cider brandy

Somerset cider brandy is the equivalent of Calvados and is quite delicious and incredibly cheap

nJbKBbVxWcz4ZuFaTdaPSU.jpg
roast pheasant
(Image credit: Sian Irvine)

I know I wrote about roast pheasant only a few weeks ago, but, after that, I bought four pheasants, locally shot, for about £12 each in Corbridge, near Hadrian s Wall. Somerset cider brandy is the equivalent of Calvados, and quite delicious.

The following recipe is seasonal, uses local ingredients, takes less than 30 minutes to cook, and is incredibly cheap.

Per person

1 pheasant breast

1 eating apple

2 tbsp cider brandy

1 tbsp cream

Butter, salt, pepper

Peel and slice the apple and fry it in a little butter until soft, then remove it and set it aside. Fry the pheasant breast for about 10 mins per side until it is done. Put the apples back in the pan, add the cider brandy and cream, season and bring back to a slow boil before serving. Good with boiled potatoes and nothing else.

Country Life

Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.

Latest in Food and Drink
Bowl of noodle soup on concrete background
'For here is pure noodle nirvana': How to make Tom Parker Bowles's favourite Thai soup
Silver plater of French fries
Sarson's malt vinegar is the best British condiment to pair with chips — and we won't hear otherwise
Jar of green pesto
Gill Meller's recipe for wild garlic pesto
Pink-lit vertical farm growing lettuces
'We can grow in four acres what would require 800 to 1,000 acres in conventional farming'
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay preparing to summit Everest
Kendal Mint Cake: The happy accident that fuelled the first ascent of Everest
Puff pastry spinach and seafood meal
How to make an ethereal-sounding seafood, spinach and asparagus puff-pastry cloud
Latest in Features
Diamond brooch
How Cartier became ‘the jeweller of kings and the king of jewellers’
A villa in Rome on the Via Nomentana
A historic villa for sale on the Via Nomentana worthy of Rome's rich history
dogs on Country Life 26 March 2025
Country Life 26 March 2025
Jade tiled bathroom
A tub carved from a single block of San Marino marble — and nine more beautiful things for the ultimate bathroom
Images of Edwardian Ashton House, near Chard
Eight bedrooms of unlisted Edwardian elegance with sweeping views of Somerset
Iron Age artefacts
Archaeologists in North Yorkshire discover ‘the biggest and most important Iron Age hoard ever found in Britain’