Last pheasant i had was a gift from a shooter - frozen stuff his missus had 'processed' into various bits.  This was breast.  Tough as old boots.  Must have been an old bird & only fit for casserole cooking style. Went into the bin after one mouthful.

Ever get pee'd off at flame ups spoiling your bbq?

Ever seen / tried a vertical bbq ? - Norwegian / Nordic idea I think.  I saw one in one of these freebie mags you get through the door - but as usual, when I went to check it out, missus had binned the mag & i couldn't remember whose it was, so I had no idea where to search & an internet search found nowt either.  So, from memory, I built one - Heath Robinson I know - but it worked.

Little did I know, female logic had been at work here (beats me how it works - despite 46 years of marriage!) and missus Ghoulie had spotted the exact catalogue beast in en end of line sale at Lakeland and bought me one for my birthday - watching me struggle to build one from memory & saying nowt about the fact she had one hidden away.

here's a piccie of a bought one - work very well in obviating the annoying charred flareup meats

JerryM - make sure you have crispy surface meat effect.  Be interesting to hear your view on this.

Re yoghurt effect - don't know if you saw prog with Heston doing Chicken Tikka for Butter Chicken dish where he queried himself for the need for yoghurt in tikka marinade - so in typical Blumenthal style he hired an MRI scanner to see if the yoghurt had a positive effect.  Result?  MRI scan proved that the yog did indeed take the marinade flavours deeper into the meat than without.

I thought pheasants were left to hang for a better tasting bird?
Search it - lot of write ups on this subject :-  here is one part of a long entry

'Pheasants hung for 9 days at 50?F have been found by overseas taste panels to be more acceptable than those hung for 4 days at 59?F or for 18 days at 41?F. The taste panels thought that the birds stored at 59?F were tougher than those held for longer periods at lower temperatures. Pheasants hung at 50?F became more ?gamy? in flavour and more tender with length of hanging.

Aha! One issue solved. Food writers rarely talk about temperature of hanging because most of them think about hanging pheasants outside, which is fine if you don?t live in California; even now it is too warm to properly hang game. It seems 50?F is ideal, and the 55?F my fridge is set at is acceptable.

Furthermore, an English study from 1973 found that clostridia and e. coli bacteria form very rapidly once you get to about 60?F, but very slowly ? and not at all in the case of clostridia ? at 50?F.'


I have eaten fresh - i.e 6 hours old pheasant - not a lot of taste - more like chicken.

I have also eaten hung pheasant & much tastier for hanging

Quote from: JerryM on November 25, 2014, 09:21 AM
I now have a sample of black lime powder (rshome123)

This is a real find for me. I put in my special ingredients box ( obviously not for curry). The box includes sun dried tomato, saffron, Spanish paprika

I can't describe other than it is a lime taste that's got a much greater depth of flavour.

Great find JerryM

Grill n Chill lebanese site looks good chewy.  You're right my intentions were well meant - some people would think a shwarma presented like that was a knife & fork nosh do!

You clearly know better

re Bhuna Naanwhich - sometimes the naans aren't quite right' - too thick and it spoils the taste effect.  Hope theirs are good.

In middle east days, I would take hot lime pickle spread in pitta bread for a quick tasty lunch if I was out and about working away from the chance of a food source.

Harry Ramsdens chip 'secret' I believe is in the fat used for 'frying' - reputed to be Beef Dripping.

Quite a few years ago in the Salford Harry Ramsdens when it was by the Manchester Ship Canal, they had a small internal 'shop' and they sold their own branded Beef Dripping.  My mate who  is more of a foodie than me bought some & used it to good effect.

When he went back there a few months later to eat in  & buy some more HR Beef Dripping - it wasn't in the 'shop' and more intriguingly they claimed never to have sold it or heard of it !  Methinks it was a corporate ploy to hide the 'trade secret' to the taste of their chips which they had unwittingly let go for a period and then sought to play down / hide.

If you are ever in the  Blackpool area - on the outskirts is a brilliant chippy called the Cottage - a lot of the stars / VIPs use it.  Try it - you won't be disappointed.

I notice darn sarf where my daughters live, the takeaway chippies provide the fish separately in a box - gets away from the soggy battered fish effect so often encountered.

Chewy - that style of shawarma 'serving' is like a diy version.  You need to make it into a wrap with the pitta / bread served - & adding the white tahine sauce is a MUST to bring out the flavours.
Eaten on a plate 'as is' will taste nothing like the whole shawarma wrap experience - and that assumes they have made it right as presented to you.  Not all shawarmas in uk are up to the mark and never confuse a shawarma with the doner kebabs so often downed after a boozy night - tastes are worlds apart.

Middle Eastern restaurant near me serves lamb shawarma as just a plain sliced / shredded plate of lamb meat sliced off the correct style vertical rottiserie with a pot of delicious Tahine sauce - nowt else.  I ask them for extra tabouleh and pitta breads - and much to their amusement and other diners make up my own wraps at the table.  Tastes great though.

Try my lamb recipe as above - as a wrap

Lamb is the better version imho

With any luck, UKIP will be calling the shots next year and get us out of the corrupt EU bandwagon - trade yes, everything  else NO.
Cost  me ?10k this year to get products tested to CE / EU standards, with ?5k pa ongoing fees - basically saying your old BSI standards are no good!  All passed - but it is a totally unnecessary, futile expense - all because the EU say it has to be.  Total & utter (moderated) - the sooner we are out of it the better !!!!!!!!