Roast Pheasant and Endive

With Frank McClelland

Pheasant is often overlooked as an alternative to turkey or chicken. According to Frank McClelland of L’Espalier, who loves turkey and loves Thanksgiving as much as anyone, it has more flavor than turkey and is one of the more interesting fowls to consider serving around the holidays.

Frank shows Food Columnist Heather Atwood how you to give the bird the full treatment that includes a citrus based marinade and a compound butter. First you make the marinade and then create a stuffing using the leftover lemon and orange peels, some apple slices, shallots and pepper. The stuffing is an "aromatic" stuffing (not served per se, but used during the roasting process to infuse the pheasant meat with light citrus and herb flavors from the inside out). Place the stuffing in the cavity and truss up tightly, which preserves the juices and assures even cooking. After marinating in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 hours or overnight, brown the pheasant in the pan with some oil to seal in the juices and caramelize the skin. Then you roast it in the oven with Belgium endive, shallots, sage, white wine and the compound butter. Delicious.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves 
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1 orange (zest, juice, and what’s left of the flesh)
1 lemon (zest, juice, and what’s left of the flesh) 
5 garlic cloves, minced
3 teaspoons salt, plus more to season capon
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 cup ground raw almonds
1 cup Pinot Noir
1 tablespoon brown sugar 
6 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to season capon
1 whole pheasant, capon or chicken (about 7 pounds)
6 shallots 
3 heads endive, cut in half lengthwise
3 garlic cloves, whole

Instructions

1. Combine the thyme, chives, parsley, and tarragon; set aside 2 tablespoons of this
mixture for the stuffing. Combine the remaining herb mixture with the butter, orange and
lemon zests, minced garlic, 2 teaspoons of the salt, the paprika, and ground almonds in
the bowl of a food processor and puree until smooth. Refrigerate for 10 minutes to allow
the butter to firm up.
2. Prepare a basting marinade by whisking together the lemon and orange juices, wine,
brown sugar, and 3 of the crushed garlic cloves in a small bowl. Set aside.
3. Prepare the stuffing by combining the chopped flesh of the orange and lemon, the
remaining 3 crushed garlic cloves, the remaining 1 teaspoon salt, the pepper, and the 2
tablespoons of reserved herbs in a small bowl. Mix well. 4. Preheat the oven to 400ºF.
5. Spread the butter mixture liberally under the skin of the entire breast and lower thigh
of the pheasant. Insert the stuffing into the capon cavity. Truss the legs together with
butcher twine.
6. Place the shallots, endive halves, and the whole garlic cloves in a medium-size roasting
pan (one in which the capon will fit snugly). Arrange them around the sides of the pan to
make room for the capon, then place the pheasant in the pan, breast side up.  
7. Pour the basting marinade over the pheasant, dust the bird with salt, and roast for 2 hours, turning every 20 minutes (on its side, on its breast, on its other side, then breast side up again). Baste the bird each time you turn it, adding additional liquid (water or wine) to
maintain the original liquid level. For the final 20 minutes of cooking (breast side up),
reduce the oven temperature to 350ºF. Remove the capon from the oven and transfer it to
a serving platter.
8. Strain the pan juices into a sauceboat, skim off the fat, and season with salt and pepper
to taste. Carve the pheasant and serve with the endive and shallots and drizzled with the
cooking juices. Note: A capon (a young rooster) is the juiciest bird, very flavorful and tender. It works perfectly with this recipe, but if you can’t find capon at your local butcher shop, you can use chicken. A lot of great organic farms raise capons, which are delicious with the organic
wine paired with this dish. Serve this dish with plenty of crusty bread to sop up the
delicious juices. Reprinted from Wine Mondays by Frank McClelland and Christie Matheson, © The Harvard Common Press Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

Chef and Proprietor, L’Espalier, Sel de la Terre, Au Soleil, and Apple Street Farm

“…food is best when it’s in its purest form. My job is to enhance that natural flavor to allow the essence of the food to sing.” – Chef Frank McClelland

Chef Frank McClelland’s L'Espalier has been a perennial “best” of America’s restaurants for three decades, earning top accolades from Zagat, Forbes, Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, Frommer’s, Wine Spectator and Condé Nast Traveler as well as nods in international media. L’Espalier is New England’s most decorated independent restaurant with twelve consecutive AAA Five Diamond Awards and twelve consecutive Forbes (Mobil) Four-Star awards.

At the heart of Chef McClelland’s menus of New England flavors with French interpretation is Apple Street Farm, his organic farm in Essex, Massachusetts that is the primary source of heirloom produce and proteins for his restaurants. The James Beard chef and cookbook author, Wine Mondays, views his life as a farmer-restaurateur as being on-trend. By living this life from his youth, he was early to the farm-to-table or “locavore” dining philosophy.

Chef McClelland's love of “field to fork” cooking began while growing up on his grandparents' farm in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. By the age of 25, he had been a chef in two of the most respected Boston kitchens: The Harvest in Cambridge and L'Espalier. In 1984, he became Executive Chef at The Country Inn at Princeton in Western Massachusetts where he established himself as a culinary talent who made time to know local farmers.  It was here that Food & Wine named him one of the country's top 25 new chefs which began the national spotlight on his career.

Frank purchased the restaurant L’Espalier outright and never looked back.

In April 2000, Chef McClelland diversified his organization with Sel de la Terre, a casual bistro with boulangeries steeped in the culinary traditions of Provence, France, with business partner Chef Geoff Gardner. Sel de la Terre opened to rave reviews and was instantly named one of the top 20 new restaurants in America by Esquire. In 2007,Au Soleil Bakery & Catering followed as a full regional catering service.

The time he spent on his family’s farm grounded Chef McClelland in the time-honored traditions of farm-to-table cooking. Today he honors his upbringing at Apple Street Farm by growing fresh herbs, heirloom fruits and vegetables and raising honeybees, egg laying chickens and livestock, which are fed farm fresh produce and whole grains breads from Au Soleil’s overages. He views sustainable agriculture as compatible with providing this region’s most memorable and environmentally friendly dining experiences.

Many of Boston’s best-known restaurants are populated with alumni were mentored under his tutelage.