Eat Wild's Korean Fried Pheasant

This incredible recipe was created for Eat Wild by Gizzi Erskine. She says that Korean fried chicken is probably her most popular recipe. She normally does it with wings and an overnight brine, but wanted to improve it, with more flavour from new marinade ingredients and make a user-friendly dish of tenders but made with pheasant breast.

Ingredients

For the dish

• 200ml buttermilk
• x1 tbsp salt
• x1 tsp garlic powder
• x8 pheasant breasts, skinless
• Oil for deep frying
• x2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
• x2 spring onions, green parts only

Flour mix

• x6 tbsp self-raising flour
• x3 tbsp rice flour
• x3 tbsp potato flour
• Half tsp garlic powder
• Sea salt flakes
• White pepper

Sauce

• x2 tbsp Gochujang (Korean chilli paste)
• x2 tbsp Sriracha chili sauce
• x4 tbsp caster sugar
• x4 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• x2 tbsp ketchup
• x1 tbsp sesame oil
• x1 tbsp chicken fat / butter

Method

1. Mix the buttermilk, salt, garlic and ginger together in a bowl. Add the pheasant and cover with the marinade, then leave in the fridge for 1 hour.
2. To make the sauce, melt together the gochujang, chilli sauce, sugar, vinegar, ketchup, sesame oil and chicken fat or butter in a saucepan. Bring to the boil for a minute, then remove from the heat and set aside.
3. Mix all the flours together in a bowl and season well. Take the marinating pheasant tenders out of the buttermilk brine, wiping off any excess with kitchen paper. Toss the breast, four pieces at a time, in the flours. Remove and set aside.
4. Heat the oil in a deep-fat fryer (or a saucepan or wok filled with oil a third of the way up its sides) to 140°C. Add the tenders and fry gently for 4 minutes, or until they are cooked through but have barely taken on any colour. Remove the breasts and drain on kitchen paper.
5. Increase the temperature of the oil to 190°C and fry the tenders for a further 1-2 minutes, or until they are golden and cooked through.
6. Toss the tenders in the sauce and 1 tablespoon of the sesame seeds. Sprinkle over the remaining sesame seeds and the spring onions (green parts only, sliced very thinly into rings) and serve immediately.

Top tip: These are best eaten with your fingers and served with an ice-cold beer!