Althouse: Pheasant brats.

April 10, 2012

Pheasant brats.

What Meade is cooking for lunch.

32 comments:

traditionalguy said...: That sounds like high brow low brow food.; 4/10/12, 2:27 PM
MadisonMan said...: Brats are all about the spices used. The meat is secondary -- unless it's too dry. Is there enough fat in pheasant meat to make the brat juicy?

Good brats: Klements. Johnsonville.; 4/10/12, 2:28 PM
Anonymous said...: I'm a Pheasant Plucker,
I'm a Pheasant Plucker's Son,
And I'm always Plucking Pheasants,
Till the Pheasant Plucking's done!; 4/10/12, 2:29 PM
Meade said...: Juicy. And delicious. I'll bet Sandhill Crane brats are equally tasty.; 4/10/12, 2:37 PM
Bob said...: Pheasant brats doesn't sound like shipping container cuisine. Just sayin'.; 4/10/12, 2:49 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: What makes a bratwurst guard his wurst? Mustard!

Buy the mustard powder and the seeds if you like bumps. Mix with a tablespoon or two of the vinegar of choice and thin to desired viscosity with water.

Within a few minutes it will defy you and absorb all the water and become too thick again. So thin it agin. Thick again. Thin it again. And so on until the powder fully absorbs. Or maybe this doesn't happen outside a desert. At any rate the result is the most amazing Dejon style mustard that you have ever experienced and you will sing its praises thereafter and never look back. I witnessed three undiscerning individuals experience an ephiphany apifony epifeny a whole new thing with some of that on Sunday. I let them have the whole jar because it was already two weeks old and lost most its magic. Three oafs were mystified with weak magic.; 4/10/12, 2:49 PM
KCFleming said...: Man did I misread that post title!!

I thought y'all was lunchin' on some poor childerns.

Jehosaphat!; 4/10/12, 2:50 PM
Alex said...: I eat my brats with Heinz organic ketchup. So sue me.; 4/10/12, 3:02 PM
KCFleming said...: How would you catch a peasant brat anyways?

Drag a ten dollar bill on a string through a trailer park?

(I stole that'un from Carville.); 4/10/12, 3:04 PM
Alex said...: Peasants make excellent brats, oooh you meant the BIRD....; 4/10/12, 3:07 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: To produce a descent pheasant brat
You'd have to pack a lot of fat.

And with the heat take some care
To protect the tender flesh from sere
So bad that mustard can not repair.; 4/10/12, 3:10 PM
Rusty said...: Is there enough fat in pheasant meat to make the brat juicy?
No.You have to add fat. Usually in the form of bacon.

I'll bet Sandhill Crane brats are equally tasty.

I don't know, but I have a recipe for Canada goose landyeagers. About the only thing they're good for.

Chip Ahoy said...
To produce a descent pheasant brat
You'd have to pack a lot of fat.

And with the heat take some care
To protect the tender flesh from sere
So bad that mustard can not repair.

You sir. Are an artist.; 4/10/12, 3:21 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: How do you tell the brats from the pleasant pheasants?; 4/10/12, 3:34 PM
fivewheels said...: Pheasant brats? Did Meade go hunting in the park for birds whining about having to pay their own bills?; 4/10/12, 3:37 PM
fivewheels said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/10/12, 3:37 PM
Tobias said...: Funny.

I originally read the post title, thinking Meade was eating a type of pheasant...instead of a "chick," "peahen," or "cock" the word for the type of pheasant was "brat" (rhyming with "cat").

Then I realized "brats" was short for "bratwurst."

Chip Ahoy, one of your Photoshops popped into my head.; 4/10/12, 3:43 PM
ndspinelli said...: Rusty, Here's the dirty secret I learned from a cheesehead butcher/sausage maker. Whether a sausage is listed as venison, pheasant, bison, etc. it has a good % of pork in it for fat flavoring. That is, unless you go to the Just Pheasant Butcher Shop. It's just around the corner from the Just Suckers Candy store in downtown Idiot, Wi.; 4/10/12, 3:50 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: I can't find it!

It's a peasant being roasted on a spit as if it were an ordinary thing. And I'm like how can it go missing like that when I put it in three places?

But I know this guy who actually shoots pheasants and has those long feathers all over the place decorating an otherwise not macabre and were it not for dead things beautiful home. One of my best paintings is hanging there prominently and I get a lot of mentions from it. One day I couldn't think of Dan Quayle's name and reached for the obvious mnemonic thing and my friend who hunts laughed and goes, "I never made that connection."; 4/10/12, 3:53 PM
ndspinelli said...: Tobias, You're so correct. The very provincial cheeseheads assume everyone knows a brat is something you eat, not a kid who gets sent to their room for stealing a bratwurst.; 4/10/12, 3:53 PM
ndspinelli said...: Cheney likes to hunt pheasants, and attorney friends.; 4/10/12, 3:55 PM
gadfly said...: Roadkill!

http://tinyurl.com/buuhufl; 4/10/12, 3:57 PM
RonF said...: He's cooking young rude pheasants?; 4/10/12, 4:00 PM
RonF said...: For those of you planning to try making your own mustard Chip Ahoy's advice is good, but there's one more important thing: do not use metal implements of any kind. The metal inhibits the enzymes that creates the mustard flavor. Ceramic, plastic or glass only, and no iron in the water (I haven't tried really hard water, so I don't know if calcium or magnesium are a problem).; 4/10/12, 4:03 PM
edutcher said...: How could brats be pleasant, I asked.

It's being unpleasant that makes them brats.

Then I put on my glasses.; 4/10/12, 4:04 PM
The Drill SGT said...: used to hunt Pheasants. The rice paddies of central California around Woodland.

Ducks would make good brats as well.

As for spices, I'm all in for Nurnburger style tiny sausages.

and Mr Mustard; 4/10/12, 4:44 PM
Known Unknown said...: The insolent birds probably deserved it.; 4/10/12, 5:03 PM
KCFleming said...: Are pheasant brats bien-pensant, pleasantly bent, or heavenly sent?; 4/10/12, 5:03 PM
Crunchy Frog said...: Mustard. Gag me. Why ruin a perfectly good brat by slathering it in mustard. That's like putting A-1 on good steak.

Taste the meat, not the condiment!; 4/10/12, 5:10 PM
Rabel said...: Chip Ahoy,

Mustard master, is this you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE44ZuFzjJ4&feature=player_embedded; 4/10/12, 5:11 PM
David said...: We are having pig brats for dinner.; 4/10/12, 5:29 PM
David said...: Chip, how do you keep the mustard from losing its zip?; 4/10/12, 5:30 PM
David said...: When I was first married, my father in law took me pheasant hunting near Dixon, Illinois.

We killed a bunch of pheasants and brought them back to St. Charles, where he lived with my very nice and proper mother in law.

We had to pluck the pheasants. I did ok at that, for never having done it before.

A little later we were having a cocktail in the living room with my new wife and proper mother in law.

My mother in law asked "David, what did you do after the hunting today."

I smiled proudly and said "pheasant plucking."

Unfortunately I interchanged the initial "ph" and "pl" of the two words.

My wife thought I did it deliberately and was not amused.

My father in law had to leave the room he was laughing so hard.; 4/10/12, 5:41 PM