Summer Dijon partridge and peas recipe

Interesting recipe. Can you even get partridge breasts in France or would the culinary experts recommend poulet or pintard as an alternative?

Tricky one! Pintadeā€™s got a bit more flavour than chicken, but dries out easily, cos thereā€™s lessfat. Might mallard be a flavousome alternative if you can get one. Also, has the French shooting season begun? Another option would be to increase the deepen the flavour of the chicken with a fairly robust marinade (say, red? wine, oil, Dijon and a few crushed juniper berries).

And as for the peas? Ours finished a couple of weeks ago and theyā€™ve disappeared (sorry!) from our local markets -are they still around up North? Alternatively frozen ones might be acceptable.

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Iā€™ve never been able to find game of any description here! I asked the question a while back and the general consensus was that you have to talk to your local chasse to have any chance :smiley:

We cook pintade a lot but certainly not roasted English style for the very reason @DrMarkH says. However, roasted French style in white wine with lemon and bay is gorgeousā€¦ or, thinking about it, in red wine with mushrooms and root veg. We havenā€™t had it for a while as we generally eat it in the winter but now I think of it, given the weather, that might be an option for the weekend :smiley:

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Yesterday, our ā€œover the garden wallā€ neighbour kindly gave us a large courgette (more like a small marrow) and proceded to give me instructions on making soup with it (as if I didnā€™t knowā€¦ :wink:)

I am sorely tempted as itā€™s not very summery todayā€¦ and a large bowl of homemade soup might just hit the spotā€¦

(the partridge sounds deliciousā€¦ might give it a whirl one dayā€¦ )

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We have seriously over-catered on the courgette front. Courgette soup, courgette fritters, courgette sauce for pasta, courgette surpriseā€¦ :rofl:

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I have seen partridge at Christmas. Over 15 euros per bird.
Game is the one thing I miss living in France.
Like others here I use pintade instead of pheasant, but the skin can be a bit greasy.
My speciality is a ballotine of pintade, again instead of pheasant.
There is a red deer farm just outside Cluny and we might give that a go as our Munich family loves venison.
I am not sure about it in August though.

In the UK, our local game keeper used to keep stocks in his bank of freezers to maintain all year round supplies.

We had a constant supply from our butcher in Nailsworth. Local wild rabbit as well, not the pappy stuff you get here.
We would stock up with partridge when we made our annual trip to Suffolk.

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Interesting.
I read a news item this morning (2 young women injured by falling oak tree in high winds in Suffolk) describing Suffolk as ā€œsouth East Englandā€.
I always thought that the south east referred specifically (if not exclusively) to Kent and that Suffolk was East Anglia.
Suffolk was the stomping ground for @Peter_Bird perhaps he has a view?
Is Peter Kentish man or a real Adnams swigging Suffolk man :thinking:

Definitely NOT SE England !!!

Iā€™m Norfolk ā€˜n good and proud of it though those foreigners across the border arenā€™t too bad either.

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This recipe is wrong in so many ways, even in the UK where it seems to have been written (eg ā€œget French creme fraiche if you canā€). As already pointed out, the shooting season has not started and while I am not aware of any farmed partridge the peas would have to be frozen when they are in season. I think guinea fowl would be a perfectly good substitute - mallard or any duck would be too fatty IMHO.

Back on UK farmersā€™ markets we used to buy pheasant breast fillets quite cheaply and pigeon for mere pennies, but I havenā€™t seen either here, sadly. In 17 where we are even when the chasse is running the pickings are not enough for the chasseurs to fill their freezers, let alone have any spare to sell.

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thatā€™s pintade, isnā€™t it?

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Yes, but as we were talking about partridge rather than perdreau I would use the English word. We all do it - I see I wrote chasseurs rather than hunters or shooters, although in that case we donā€™t really have a word in English that feels as comfortable in use.

why not use ā€œgame-keepersā€ā€¦

I did :slightly_smiling_face: smug_small

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Yes, but my reply was to Russell and Iā€™m left wondering why @Russellgww doesnā€™t use itā€¦

Do you mean gamekeepers or game dealers? There is a big difference between the two and both are very rare in France AFIK. Neither are anywhere near a substitute for chasseurs who tend to hunt on public and private land rather than the enclosed private estates that are the norm in the UK. Shooters is probably the nearest direct equivalent but it is an ugly word (IMHO) and doesnā€™t really convey the full sense. Hunters is too easily confused with foxhunting or similar activities.

I was referring specifically to my experience in the UK (and mentioned such). I canā€™t answer for @Stella
Often, in the UK, they are one of the same in rural locations.

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South East is quite a large area which is in some ways anomalous as it includes Buckinghamshire which is not really geographically SE at all. It certainly extends further north than the southern reaches of Suffolk.

when you remember that the UK Govt struggles with confusion over islands in the Pacific being France - you can understand why they confuse East Anglia with the SE :sweat_smile: