| 1 | Preheat oven to 350 °F. |
| 2 | Rub pheasant inside and out with salt and pepper. |
| 3 | Sprinkle with port. |
| 4 | Stuff with bay leaf, cloves, garlic, parsley, celery leaves, lemon, juniper berries and tangerine. |
| 5 | Sew the body cavity of the pheasant shut. |
| 6 | Moisten the larding pork or bacon with port and cover the breast. |
| 7 | To the roasting pan add onion slices, mushroom peelings, about 1 cup of port, chicken stock, salt to taste, peppercorns, more juniper berries to taste, and mandarine liqueur. |
| 8 | Roast 40-45 minutes, basting every 10 minutes at least. |
| 9 | Strain gravy. |
| 10 | Let stand and skim fat. |
| 11 | Just before serving, add sour cream. |
| 12 | Notes: * homme pheasant for thanksgiving -- a couple of years ago, we decided that pheasant would be the perfect thanksgiving meal for two. |
| 13 | My husband conflated the best parts of all the pheasant recipes we could find (most came from the gourmet cookbook) and came up with a recipe that i find wonderful. |
| 14 | It"s moist and tender; tastes like chicken gone to heaven. |
| 15 | (one of pheasant"s main problems, by the way, is that it tends to be dry). |
| 16 | * (we usually stick the whole cloves into the tangerine, insert all the other spices into the body cavity, then add the tangerine). |
| 17 | * some of these ingredients may be hard to find; feel free to omit them. |
| 18 | "mushroom peelings" are simply mushroom stems and leftovers, chopped fine. |
| 19 | "bruised peppercorns" are peppercorns that have been hit with a wooden mallet. |
| 20 | Bon appetit, and good luck! : difficulty: moderate. |
| 21 | : time: 1 hour. |
| 22 | : precision: approximate measurement ok. |
