Glorious grouse

This is a Tom Parker Bowles’ recipe for roast grouse that we saw in The Sunday Times Magazine recently. As grouse is husband’s all time epic favourite, this just had to be cooked at the earliest opportunity – last night actually. We didn’t have any watercress and so steamed some dark green broccoli and runner beans, which both went very well with the perfectly cooked, glorious grouse. Husband’s still licking his lips!

TOM PARKER BOWLES’ ROAST GROUSE

Serves 4

Ingredients

4 young grouse

50g butter

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

150ml dry white wine

300ml game or chicken stock

Sprig of thyme

Watercress

200g white bread, a couple of days old, crusts removed

50g butter

4 slices streaky bacon – optional

Method

Heat oven to 240 degrees centigrade. Lightly cover the grouse breasts with butter inside and out. Optionally lay bacon on top of each grouse.Put into hot oven for about 15 mins. You want rare meat, not bloody. The breasts should feel fairly firm. If too soft, they’re not cooked. Remove birds from tin and leave to rest while you make the gravy.

For the breadcrumbs, tear the bread into small bits and blitz in food processor. Fry the crumbs in butter over a medium heat until crisp. Drain on kitchen paper, then season.

Pour off excess fat from roasting tin and then put the tin over a high heat and throw in the wine, stirring and scraping while you simmer it. Reduce by half then add the stock, thyme, salt and pepper and boil to reduce until deeply flavoured. Add any of the juices released from the resting grouse, then strain through a sieve into a warmed jug.

Serve with watercress, fried breadcrumbs and bread sauce.

Check out Tom’s Let’s Eat: Recipes From My Kitchen Notebook £25 hardback, £13.38 Kindle or £14.99 paperback.