Salmis of Pheasant

Ingredients

• 1 pheasant
• a dash of Cognac
• a little clear melted meat glaze
• 2 1/2 decilitres white wine
• 3 shallots
• a few grains of mignonette pepper
• 1 1/2 decilitres game sauce Espagnole
• 1 1/2 decilitres game fumet
• butter
• 10 small cooked mushrooms
• about 20 slices of truffle

Instructions

1. Roast the pheasant, keeping it underdone but not excessively so.
2. Carve it briskly into 6 pieces: the legs; the wings with the pinion removed; the breast split in two lengthwise.
3. Remove the skin from the pieces and trim them correctly.
4. Keep them at a gentle heat in a covered sauté pan with a dash of flamed Cognac and a little clear melted meat glaze.
5. Pound the carcass and the trimmings.
6. Reduce 2 and a half decilitres of white wine almost entirely with 3 chopped shallots and a few grains of mignonette pepper, then add the pounded carcass and trimmings.
7. Add a decilitre and a half of game sauce Espagnole and a decilitre and a half of game fumet, and cook for 10 minutes.
8. Pass through a sieve, pressing the carcasses well, then through a chinois.
9. Reduce the sauce by about a third while skimming it, pass it once more through the chinois and butter it lightly.
10. Pour it over the pieces of pheasant, with 10 small cooked mushrooms and about twenty slices of truffle added.
11. Dish up in a timbale and serve hot.