#jameslowe

Grouse is my favourite, it’s seen by many as the king of of the game birds, and for me it’s the sign that game season has really begun. The first shoot of the year is on “the glorious twelfth” - 12th August, and from then onwards another bird comes into season every month or so and you’ll find nature almost writing the menu for you as the next bird and then the next appears to be cooked and served for our guests.

Grouse can be quite intimidating, firstly for its cost at the start of the season (it’s expensive because of low numbers and high demand in August) and secondly it has an incredibly unique flavour, which some may find too challenging. If you wait a couple of weeks for the price to come down and prepare the bird properly I think it’s a very approachable bird.

I like serving grouse with bread sauce as it’s quite a classical pairing. The mulberries really tie everything together, I love how mulberries are a wild fruit, they aren’t commercially grown as they’re awkward and don’t start yielding fruit for the first few years of their lives - there’s something very British about that!

Make sure you keep the heart and liver, it’s an integral part of the experience to eat the entire bird. Why would you waste anything if you’ve gone through the trouble of the shoot? Here, I’ve served them very simply, chopped, on a piece of toast.

Serves 4  Ingredients 2 onions 8 cloves 1 bay leaf 500ml milk 150g white breadcrumbs 1tbsp butter 200g mulberries 300g red wine vinegar 150g sugar Grouse Butter Small piece of sourdough toast Salt

Method - Bread Sauce - 1. Cut two onions in half, thinly slice one and stud the other with the cloves.  2. Put the onions in a small pot with the bay leaf, milk, and a pinch of salt.  3. Bring the mixture up to very low simmer, take off the heat and then leave to infuse for an hour. 4. Remove the onion, cloves and bay leaf, and then heat the milk very gently with the breadcrumbs. 5. Stir every 15 minutes until the mixture thickens to the consistency of a loose mashed potato.

- Pickled Mulberries - 1. Bring the vinegar and sugar to the boil and add the mulberries. 2. Take off the heat and allow to cool. 3. If you wish to preserve the berries, pour them into a sanitised jam jar while hot and seal.

- Grouse - 1. Remove the bird’s head and wings. Cut around the birds leg (just above the heel) with a sharp blade. Place the bird flat on the board. 2. Strike its leg very hard with the back of a knife blade to smash the bone. With one hand squeeze the lower leg muscle, then with the other hand pull out all the tendons by it’s feet. This means you will be able to eat the whole leg without having to pick bits out of your teeth! 3. Cut open the cavity at the bottom of the breast bone, remove the birds guts, but set aside the heart and liver. Season the bird with salt. 4. Add butter to a heavy based frying pan. Sear the bird on all sides, starting with the grouse on its side to ensure you coat all surfaces evenly. The bird should brown not blacken. If it turns black your butter is too hot, if it’s not brown enough your heat is on too low. 5. Place the plan and the bird in a 180 degree oven for 5 minutes. When you take it out, test that the thickest part of the breast has reached a temperature of 56 degrees centigrade. 6. Remove the bird from the pan. Add the liver, heart and bread fry briefly. 7. Remove liver and heart from the pan when they begin to firm up, and the bread when it becomes crispy. Leave to rest aside.