• Wild Grouse, Whole
  • Wild Grouse, Whole
  • Wild Grouse, Whole
  • Wild Grouse, Whole

Wild Grouse, Whole

£16.95

Sold out
  • 1 bird typically serves 1
  • Oven-ready (no giblets)
  • Sold singularly
We currently have 0 remaining in stock.
  • Delivered fresh
  • Suitable for freezing
  • Native breed
  • Great for home roasting
  • Cook on the BBQ

Product description

Grouse are shot from 12 August to 10 December.

A British icon, the famed red grouse signals the start of the game season on the Glorious Twelfth - 12th August. The grouse-shooting season runs until 10th December.

Red Yorkshire grouse* is packed with complex flavours from feeding on heather tips and bilberries; its rich, dark meat is truly incomparable. We like to keep things simple and recommend serving grouse with game chips and Val's easy bread sauce recipe.

Chef Valentine Warner inspires:
"Goback, goback, goback - the vocalisation of the grouse thrills me to the core, both uplifts yet haunts me no less, as to be observing or hunting them is to be in a most special, quiet and unique landscape. The grouse and heather are so eternally intertwined.

Whether seen as a covey whizzing low along the maroon contours of the moors like a squadron of tiny fighter jets or singularly pacing its look out boulder, a plump, tweeded sentinel - for me the grouse is the definitive emblem of what we can consider the last vestiges of wild Britain.

Wading this heather in rare sunshine or pelting rain you have to work for a grouse and it is this gesture of exchange, a life for a meal that sees me only want to show the utmost respect to what I consider the greatest prize of all our game birds.

Nibbling on heather tips and bilberries the purple flesh of the grouse is nothing short of exquisite. Like snipe and woodcock, grouse will not eat from cultivated crops and so picky as its diet requires is among the truest wild meat upon a plate.

While old recipes regard hanging as a necessity I tend to disagree as the results can be too strong and put off first timers. I see only reason to hang the older or end of season birds for two days at most as I feel it can spoil such delicious meat. Meat so full of simultaneous depth and subtlety. The breast and leg meat are totally different, the latter often compromised by hanging."

Buy grouse meat online today.

*The landscape on our doorstep is rich with wild game, and as such, we work with small shoots across the Yorkshire Dales who manage the landscape sympathetically and maintain high levels of biodiversity, something we feel is of prime importance.

Ingredients

Wild grouse. May contain lead shot. 

Cooking advice

Valentine says: "rarely, but often enough a grouse will arrive at the table more rare (raw) than desired. Pink breast meat is essential that such purple tenderness be enjoyed, but I do not like being told by the waiter that a raw bird is how it should be!

  • Achieving a golden brown skin is not possible in the time the bird spends in the oven so I sear the sides of the bird in very hot oil* before roasting.
  • If the pan is hot enough this should really take no longer than a minute on each side. I'd add here that because I like to use the undercarriage of the bird’s carcass to make a gravy, I tend to roast the crown with the legs taken off and placed in the pan skin side down next to the crown.
  • I roast my grouse at 200°C until the internal temperature, within the thickest part of the breast right next to the bone, is 52°C.
  • Let the bird have a very good rest before serving - this will take approximately 14-16 minutes depending on whether the grouse is a small, young bird or an older one. Ultimately though it's down to the reading of a meat thermometer AKA The Wand of Hope.
  • A perfectly cooked grouse is the wild meat of the pagan gods and an absolute favourite"

*Select an oil with a high smoking point and neutral flavour

Journal

The following are available on our journal: how to cook grouse and George Ryle's roast grouse recipe with bread sauce, game chips and liver parfait toast.

Customer reviews

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