I am actually just going to link to a good description from the Kansas Department of Wildlife site, but I did clean a pheasant for the first time last week, by myself, with no idea what I was doing. A friend showed up unexpectedly at my door with two pheasant that he had gutted but were otherwise intact. I’ve been there for the cleaning of grouse and turkey, but I had never actually done it myself. I decided I would pluck one bird and skin the other. So I started with the plucking.
I decided the first thing I had to do was cut off the head and wings. I don’t know if that’s the right way or not, but I didn’t feel right about plucking the poor thing when it still looked like an animal to me. So it was off with his head. I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve ever cut the head off anything, and I just kept saying, “I’m sorry. Thank you for giving your life for me.” It wasn’t SO bad–the life was long gone from this critter–and at the same time I kept thinking to myself everyone who eats meat should have to do this at least once in their life. Meat doesn’t just magically appear in that plastic package in your supermarket. Even at the most humane, completely organic farms, someone has the job of taking the life of a lot of animals. And any of us who eat commercial meat are in some way responsible for that. But back to the pheasant….
Next I cut off the wings, and cut the legs off. I’ve cooked a lot of chicken in my life, so this wasn’t all that difficult to me. But still you will want to make sure your knife is sharp and it’s best to try to get through the joints cleanly. Now to pluck this sucker.
Surprisingly, the feathers came off pretty easily, but they stick to everything, so it becomes a challenge just to get the feathers off the bird and into some kind of trash receptacle. Then you always have the areas where the shot entered the bird, and the feathers get tucked up inside the bird at those entry points. So you have to do bit of digging to get the feathers out if you are trying to leave the skin on. I like to make soup from the whole carcass, and I think the skin adds so much to the broth. You also may end up with the ends of some feathers still stuck in the skin, and those can be hard to get out because everything is sort of slippery and loose. I have a tiny pair of needle nose pliers that I will use to get the bird completely clean. Rinse the bird well, pat it dry, and vacuum seal it and voila! One of life’s delicacies, ready to prepare any way you see fit.
For the second bird, I have read wonderful stories about stepping on the head/neck of the bird and just pulling the skin off the entire body. That would be great, and it might work in the field, but for this bird after I removed the head and wings, I just used my knife to gently cut the skin off and peel it back. Even though I thought the plucking was less of a chore than I was expecting, the skinning method is MUCH easier. If you get a lot of birds and just want the breast meat this is definitely the way to go. But if you only have a couple of pheasant I think it is well worth the effort to try to keep the skin on one bird so you can roast it. I know I have mentioned it in some of my recipes, but ground pheasant is a marvelous substitute for ground beef in almost any recipe. My two favorites are pizza and spaghetti sauce.
So here is the link to the KDOW instructions for cleaning pheasant, complete with photos. http://www.kdwp.state.ks.us/news/Other-Services/Education/Hunter/Tips-and-Techniques/How-To/How-to-Clean-a-Pheasant