Weekly Food Challenge

This started off Caribbean and then, as I did cooking things to it, gradually turned into a roast dinner. If I'm not paying attention, everything I cook turns into a roast dinner. This, then, is the chicken tikka masala of Caribbean cuisine. It's about as authentically Caribbean as Notting Hill Carnival. What it is, though, is bloody delicious.

I don't celebrate Christmas, but I do celebrate any opportunity to eat massive amounts of fabulous food. A couple of Decembers ago, then, I roasted myself a pheasant and just happened to be drinking a Dark ‘n’ Stormy® when I ate it. (Yes, I drink when I'm at home on my own. You would too if you made drinks as good as mine.) The flavours go marvellously together, the Delphic gaminess of the pheasant complimented by the sharp zing of the lime and the burnt caramel from a good rum. It's the same principle behind sticky bourbon chicken, but richer and deeper. Since then I've attempted a couple of variations on Dark ‘n’ Stormy® pheasant (stuffed and brined, both awesome, recipes available on request). This time I got hold of a pack of supremes so decided to try something different.

They're different from breasts, supremes, because of the spelling. The woman behind the butcher counter was unable to explain what the distinction was. I presume the word was invented by some euphemistic Victorians who didn't want to speak of the Devil's dumplings. I feel compelled to adopt this circumlocution as my own: Cor, that Kelly Macdonald has a fantastic set of supremes. Ah, la virage de la cuillère, la virage de ta suprème; j'ai voudrais prenez la cuillère.... The only downside is that I shall never be able to listen to Diana Ross without sniggering, but then that was pretty much the case already.

From breasts to cocks ‘n’ tails. The Dark ‘n’ Stormy® is a registered trademark of Goslings Brothers of Bermuda. It's not a proper Dark ‘n’ Stormy® unless it contains Gosling's Black Seal rum, lime, and ginger beer. The insistence on Black Seal is a shame, because I like my cocktails a bit lighter in tone, and the Brothers' golden rum (appropriately, if unimaginatively, named Gosling's Gold) is perfect for it. I keep trying to convince the guy in Lupe Pintos to stock it. For all I know he's listened to me, but he closes at 6pm and I got there at 6:04, so I bought from Drinkmonger instead. They had a dog in the shop and the guy waved at me in recognition and simply handed me a glass of some incredible American wheat whiskey without saying anything. I like Drinkmonger.

And in the end I used Ron Barceló Añejo for the pheasant (too much added caramel for my liking, but that makes it perfect for this recipe), because Goslings is for drinking.

Enough wittering. Maybe I should actually talk about the recipe now.

Dark ‘n’ Stormy® pheasant supremes

1. In a deep baking dish, drizzle some honey, sprinkle some brown sugar, slosh in some rum. Enough rum to cover the bottom of the dish.
   • Top Tip! Set the dish on the most uneven part of your worktop, then it will take more rum to cover the bottom of it. Jommetry is your friend.
2. Zest and juice two limes into your dish. Grate a big chunk of ginger in: make sure you squeeze out all the delicious ginger juice. Slosh some more rum in, just to make sure.
3. Mix the lot up with a fork.
4. Arrange the pheasant supremes in the bottom of the dish. Turn them over so they've been covered. Cover with clinging film and leave to marinade overnight.
5. Spend enough time wondering whether the verb is ‘marinade’ or ‘marinate’ that the word ‘marinade’ starts to look like it describes a sticky, honey-and-raw-poultry flavoured fizzy pop.
6. Next day, replace the clinging film with foil and bake for a while. I did 200°C for forty minutes, turning half way through, and it was far too hot and far too long. Next time I'm going to turn it down to 175° and check it after twenty minutes. Of course, by the next time I do this I'll have an oven that wasn't carved by stone tools.
7. Fish out the cooked supremes and set aside. Drain the marina[dt]ing liquid into a pan, mix in some cornflour and reduce to a sauce over a high heat.
8. I tried searing the pheasant boobs inna hot pan to get some caramelization going (Maillard reactions are our friends). It didn't work very well, but you can try it if you like.
9. Plate each, boob each, some veg. Eclipse the boob artfully with the sauce.
10. Nom like a motherfucker.

Holy crap this is delicious

Pheasant supremes come in packs of ten. Admittedly, that works out at 90p per breast or £1.80 per decolletage (I wonder what they do with the rest of the bird?), but it does mean that I have eight more servings of this to get through. I regret nothing. It is delicious.