Pheasant and Wild Mushroom Soup

This tasty soup recipe combines 2 of my favorite ingredients— pheasant and hen-of-the-woods (or sheepshead) mushrooms. Sheepsheads are the tasty alternative to the king of spring morel. I prefer the fall sheepshead for soup. They are the perfect wild mushroom to use in either a broth-based or cream-based soup. And I prefer to use pheasant legs for this recipe. By parboiling in chicken broth, any “gamy” taste is removed, and it let’s you pull the meat away from all tendons and bone. Pheasant legs (like wild turkey legs) have so many tendons that they are not very good cooked any other way.

Ingredients
– fresh sheepshead mushroom (roughly one pound)
– fresh onion
- bacon
– 6-8 pheasant legs
- 7 cups of chicken broth
- stick of butter
- 3 tablespoons flour
– 3/4 cup of heavy cream
– 2 teaspoons of salt
– dash of black pepper

Instructions
– pull the mushroom apart, rinse, and pat dry on paper towels
– dice the mushroom into small quarter-inch cubes
– dice the onions the same way
– brown the bacon, and cut into small pieces
– parboil the pheasant legs in chicken broth (enough to cover meat) until the meat is pulling apart from the bone
– then remove from stock and pull the pheasant meat off the bone (stay away from tendons) and cut into small pieces
– in a stock pot, melt the butter and sautee the onions and mushrooms for 5-6 minutes
– once onions and shrooms are browned, add in the diced pheasant
– sprinkle in flour and stir constantly for 2-3 minutes
– stir in the bacon pieces
– add in chicken broth, bring to a quick boil, then turn down hear and simmer for 15 minutes

To make this a “creamy” soup, use a half a cup of flour and a full cup of heavy cream.