Pheasant, coconut & tamarind curry

I’m probably repeating myself but, living in a huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ environment, I am never short of game for my freezer or fridge. Sometimes it’s a brace of pheasants which we hang for a few days before plucking, sometimes Husband will just remove the breasts because it is so much easier/quicker. At other times we get a few oven ready partridge or the odd duck.

This Sunday, Husband requested pheasant curry and so I  adapted a recipe for a Prawn, Coconut & Tamarind dish that I found on Google. While looking for the relevant spices, I had a clear out of all the old jars (was shocked when I saw how out of date most of my stuff was). I didn’t fancy buying lots of new ones as January tends to be a time of year when I’m budgeting like crazy, so this recipe with turmeric and tamarind plus a few things I already had in my store cupboard appealed to me.

PHEASANT, TAMARIND & COCONUT CURRY

INGREDIENTS serves 4
500g pheasant breasts (usually four) cut into bite size pieces
2 tbsp tamarind paste
1 tsp turmeric
1 onion, finely sliced
1 green pepper, thickly sliced
Red chilli, clove garlic and
thumb sized piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped
2 tsp yellow mustard seeds
400ml tin coconut milk
1 tbsp soy sauce
Nigella seeds
Handful fresh coriander

How to prepare
Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a large deep sided frying pan and add the onion and pepper. Cook for 5 minutes until the ingredients have softened. Add the chilli, ginger and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Then add the mustard seeds and turmeric. Drizzle a little more olive oil in the pan and then add the pheasant breast and cook for about 5 mins until the meat is sealed.
Add the tamarind paste and coconut milk and simmer for five mins or so. Stir in the soy sauce and sprinkle with the fresh coriander (a few leaves will do, I just love the stuff and probably put too much on!) and a few nigella seeds. You can add a squeeze of fresh lime if you like. Green beans and rice go well with this – we also added some warmed naan and a couple of poppadums. Lime pickle was, in our opinion, an essential accompaniment.