Recipe: Roasted partridge with cider sauce

Recipe by: Game for Anything

P.S. If you love cooking with game, check out Tim’s Wild Kitchen on Shooting & Country TV!

With lots of shoots now well into the season, there is plenty of game meat around, and so I hope you are all using this opportunity to ensure as much of this as possible is taken home by the shooting team and the beaters at the end of the day. 

With people becoming more conscious of where their food comes from and how many food miles its travelled, there is no better bird for your roast than a partridge, taken home from a local shoot or purchased from a local game dealer. 

Recipe courtesy of Game for Anything 

Roasted Partridge with Red Cabbage & Dauphinoise Potatoes | Serves 4
Roast partridge ingredients

• 4 oven-ready partridge  
• 20g salted butter  
• 4 smoked streaky bacon rashers, cut in half 
• 1 large onion, roughly sliced 
• 8 sage leaves    
• 1tbsp olive oil 
• 2 apples, cut into quarters  

Dauphinoise potatoes ingredients  

• 4 large floury type potatoes, finely sliced  
• 300ml double cream  
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed  
• 2 red onions, finely sliced 
• 1 tbsp olive oil  
• 10g unsalted butter  
• 100g parmesan, grated  
• Salt & pepper  

Red cabbage with apples ingredients

• 1 red cabbage, finely sliced  
• 1 red onion, finely sliced  
• 70g soft brown sugar  
• 70ml cider vinegar 
• 100ml port  
• 10g salted butter 
• 1 cinnamon stick 
• 1 eating apple, cut in to eight pieces  

Cider sauce ingredients   

• 100ml cider  
• 150ml partridge stock  
• 1tbsp crab apple jelly 

To make the red cabbage

1. Place all the ingredients into a large saucepan over a low heat and bring to the boil.
2. Leave to simmer for 90 minutes, then remove the lid and cook for a further 30 minutes.

To make the dauphinoise potatoes  

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. 
2. In a frying pan, place the butter, olive oil & onion over a low heat, and cook the onion until tender. 
3. In an ovenproof dish, pour a little bit of the cream in the base, place a layer of the sliced potatoes, and sprinkle over some of the onions and garlic. Season well with the salt and pepper, then pour over a little more of the cream. 
4. Repeat this process until you finally top it off with a layer of potatoes and pour over the last of the cream and then add the Parmesan cheese. 
5. Place in the oven for 40 minutes until the potatoes are soft.

To make the roast partridge   

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. 
2. Place a knob of butter, 2 sage leaves and a couple of pieces of apple into the cavity of the birds.
3. Lay a strip of the streaky bacon over each breast of each partridge.  
4. Place the onions in the base of a roasting tray and place the partridges on top.  
5. Place in the oven and roast for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 180°C and roast for a further 10 minutes. 
6. Once cooked, remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes on a plate covered with foil. 

To make the cider sauce   

1. Add the cider to the roasting tray used to cook the partridge and using a wooden spoon scrape the base of the tray to get all the cooking juices. 
2. Strain this through a sieve into a saucepan and then add the stock and crab apple jelly. 
3. Bring to the boil and reduce by half.