Pheasant in Mustard Sauce

April warmed and held — fifties most days, low thirties at night, the kind of run that opens the ground and starts the real growing. I planted peas Saturday in the small kitchen-garden bed by the south side of the house, the same row I have planted peas in for fifty years, the soil dark and damp and ready, the seeds going in at the proper inch depth in the proper four-inch spacing, the trellis (which I made twenty-five years ago and which has been repaired twice and replaced never) set in place along the row. The peas are the first thing I plant every year and the planting is one of the rituals that organizes the spring — the soil has to be cool but workable, the chance of hard frost has to be reasonably past, the calendar typically lines up at the second or third weekend of April. I have been wrong about the timing exactly once in fifty years, and the year I was wrong (1989, a hard frost on May 8 that killed the row I had planted on April 15) is the year I learned to plant a second short row two weeks after the first as insurance, which is the kind of lesson a Vermont gardener only needs to learn once.

The blog post for the week was about the pea-planting ritual — concrete, technical, with the date and the conditions and the spacing — and the comments came in from gardeners across the Northeast asking the same questions every spring: how do I know when the soil is ready, what variety do I plant, do I soak the seeds. I answered each one. The variety is Lincoln (a shelling pea, an heirloom, the variety my grandfather planted, the variety my father planted, the variety I have never deviated from). I do not soak the seeds — the soil is moist enough at this time of year — but I will if the soil is dry, which it occasionally is in a low-snow winter. The soil is ready when you can squeeze a handful and it holds together briefly and then crumbles when you poke it. The handful test is older than soil thermometers and is, in my experience, more reliable.

Made a lamb stew Saturday with the second-to-last of the parsnips from the root cellar and the first asparagus of the year, which I had bought on impulse at the co-op despite knowing better, the asparagus from California always being a poor substitute for the asparagus that will be coming up in the bed by the back fence in two weeks if the weather holds. The stew was good despite the asparagus, which I added in the last five minutes of cooking and which provided a small green note that the dish did not strictly need. The leftover parsnips have a sweetness now that they did not have in October — six months in the root cellar develops them into a vegetable that is almost a candy, the starches having converted slowly to sugars in the long cold dark, the patience of root-cellar storage rewarded in the eating.

The Friday vets coffee included a new face this week — a man named Tom Albany, who served in a different war than most of us did (the first Gulf, in his case) and who had moved to Hinesburg from New Hampshire to be near a daughter and her family. Phil had brought him along, as Phil does with anyone he thinks would benefit from the gathering, and Tom was quiet through the first half-hour and then began to talk about the weather and his grandchildren and the difficulty of finding a decent breakfast diner in the area, which is the kind of opening conversation that the rest of us recognized as the entry the gathering allows. He will come back. We did not invite him to come back. The invitation is implied by the fact that we did not ask him to leave, which in a Vermont room of veterans is the entire welcome.

The lamb stew carried the week well enough, but it is the kind of dish that asks you to use what the root cellar still offers and to make peace with imported asparagus — improvised, if honest. What I keep returning to for a Saturday evening when the ground is cold but the kitchen is warm is something with a bit more ceremony to it: pheasant braised low and long in mustard and cream, the sauce building the kind of depth that rewards patience the same way six months of root-cellar storage rewards a parsnip. It is the meal I would put in front of Tom Albany the second or third Friday he shows up, when the quiet welcome has had time to settle into something a man can actually taste.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 50 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 pheasant (2 1/2 to 3 lbs), cut into 6 pieces
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard, divided
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup dry white wine
3/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
1 teaspoon whole-grain mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped, for garnish

Instructions

Season and coat. Pat the pheasant pieces dry with paper towels. Season generously with salt and pepper, then brush all sides with 2 tablespoons of the Dijon mustard.
Brown the pheasant. Heat butter and olive oil together in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the pheasant pieces in a single layer and brown well on all sides, about 4 to 5 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
Soften the aromatics. Reduce heat to medium. Add the sliced onion to the same pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly golden, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more.
Deglaze. Pour in the white wine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Let the wine reduce by half, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Braise. Stir in the chicken broth, thyme, and the remaining 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard. Return the pheasant pieces to the pan, nestling them into the liquid. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover, and cook over low heat until the pheasant is cooked through and tender, about 30 to 35 minutes.
Finish the sauce. Remove the pheasant pieces to a warm platter. Increase heat to medium and stir in the heavy cream and whole-grain mustard. Simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens slightly, about 4 to 5 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Serve. Spoon the mustard cream sauce over the pheasant. Garnish with chopped parsley and serve alongside egg noodles, roasted potatoes, or crusty bread to catch the sauce.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pheasant in Mustard Sauce — Something Worth Sitting Down To When the Ground Finally Opens