We have a great selection of wild meat available this week, natural, sustainable and delicious.
With wild rabbit that has been ferreted from Cobnor, this is a pre-war favourite dish that is gradually coming back into favour. It is lean and healthy white meat, that works best in a stew or casserole, but is delicious when cooked low and slow.
Wood Pigeon is one of my favourite meats, the colour and texture of a good steak, it’s worth pan frying to medium rare with thyme and garlic – or as one of customers enjoys it, marinated overnight in sloe gin! It works especially well topped on a hearty salad with root vegetable crisps.
We have all the cuts for fallow, as well as Muntjac haunch and there is no finer eating. You can cook venison in every way, from the BBQ, grill to slow cooked stews. It’s a more healthy alternative to beef and can be used as a direct replacement in almost all dishes. Our butchers have venison sausages available as well.
We will also have the first of the season’s partridge this week – one of the mildest game birds, its quick and simple to roast with a couple of streaky bacon rashers to keep it moist.
Wild Meat is the most healthy meat you can get – it’s wild foraging means that it is feeding on whatever is at it’s best. And at the end of the summer, it has had a huge variety of herbs, grasses, shrubs and berries to choose from, giving the meat a complex flavour which is high in protein, minerals and nutrients, while being low in fat. With the rise of industrial feedlot beef in the UK, and lack of traceability in the Supermarkets, we should all be eating less meat. However, you can eat game with a clear conscience as their numbers are high and need to be controlled, while the health benefits are well documented.