Pheasant Puttanesca
Puttanesca is a simple winter pasta dish that requires no fresh ingredients. Everything you need comes in jars or cans. It’s a deeply savory, one pan dish that you can whip up in 15 minutes. Rich with complexity and umami, it’s been a go-to, late night, weekday dinner. It’s filling yet bright, and not too heavy. It's an oddly satisfying dish.
While I won’t argue that this classic needs anything extra, we do find that it’s even more satisfying with some added protein. We’ve made this dish with rabbit loins, pheasant, turkey, and even threw in some leftover fried chicken (embarrassingly good). Any lighter-flavored meat works well.
We recently went on a pheasant shoot at a preserve and came home with a few bags of pheasant legs that were destined to be discarded. I guess most people just want breasts? Either way, we’re more excited about cooking pheasant legs than breasts. I braised a big batch of them with some aromatics and stock, shredded the meat and made some pasta.
Pheasant legs braise up pretty fast- they were shreddable in about 2 hours. One note though, pheasant legs are full of tendons just like turkeys, but they are a lot smaller. So take your time and pick these out, they’re small enough to go unnoticed until they poke the roof of your mouth.
Pheasant Puttanesca
Servings: around 2
Prep time: 2 hours
Cook time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
For the pheasant:
~2 pounds of pheasant legs
4-6 cloves of garlic
Sprig of rosemary (optional)
1-2 bay leaves
~1 quart stock (any light stock, we used turkey stock)
For the puttanesca:
~½ cup evoo
4-6 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
6-8 canned salted anchovies (get the good ones in the glass jar)
2 tbsp capers
½ cup salt cured black olives, chopped
1 28oz can whole tomatoes, drained, crushed by hand or rough chopped
2 tsp red pepper flake
1 pound of cooked spaghetti
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Season and brown both sides of the legs in a dutch oven over medium high heat.
Add garlic, rosemary, bay leaves and stock. Add additional stock or water as needed to almost cover the meat. Cover and bring to a simmer, place in the preheated oven.
Cook for about 2 hours or until fork tender. Remove from the oven and allow it to cool enough to handle.
Shred the meat from the bones, set aside.
In a large sautee pan over medium heat, add about ¼ cup of evoo, garlic and anchovies. Stir and cook until fragrant and garlic is tender, about 3 minutes. Add in drained tomatoes and stir, cook for another 5-8 minutes until incorporated and semi sticky. Add in olives, capers and red pepper, cook for another minute. Fold in pheasant, heat until warm and toss with pasta.
I like to add a little parmesan to the final dish, a little deviation from the traditional dish, but hey, pheasants aren’t a traditional addition to puttanesca either.
