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Pheasant and Apple Soup

Pheasant and Apple Soup 

The recipe for pheasant and apple soup in The Soup Book is by Carolyn Humphries, who provided the recipe for the Italian wedding soup I cooked in September. It wasn't one I was planning to make when browsing through the book last weekend, but during the week I alighted upon it and thought it would fit the Christmas bill of fare. The ingredients include a small pheasant, onion, sweet potato, a cooking apple, cider, chicken stock, cinnamon, a bay leaf and cream.  Carolyn suggests using other game birds, such as pigeon or partridge, if pheasant cannot be found, but the spouse located a pheasant in a local speciality butcher's shop around the corner from where we live.  We put it in our spare fridge out in the garage so it wouldn't pollute our main indoor fridge. The spouse claims he could smell it in the garage, but I didn't notice anything too horrible.  I brought it indoors this morning and we had a look at it. The spouse made the first incision and realised that it hadn't been gutted. I let him do the manly honours. The recipes says to cut off the breasts and reserve for a separate dish, but I decided to put them into the soup, as we were cutting off any parts of the pheasant we didn't like the look of!

Pheasant and Apple Soup on St Stephen's Day, 2010

I finished the preliminary cooking, then removed the pheasant, bay leaf and cinnamon. Having taken the meat off the bones, I returned it to the soup and stirred in the cream.  Three of us have just enjoyed a rich and creamy, but dangerous soup. I say dangerous because we had to be careful not to bite the lead shot that was peppered through the poor bird.
The older offspring arrived home just as we had finished eating and is enjoying a big bowlful of soup now. The bee connection? He said it was "the bee's pyjamas"!
Another bee connection: the spouse bought me a pair of Alan Ardiff's "Honey" earrings!

Seasons greetings to one and all!
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