What do you do when someone gives you four frozen pheasant breasts? Well you keep them in the freezer and think and research, think and research, and then research some more. Then you take the plunge and cook them. That's what happened to me over the past couple of weeks.

I had never cooked wild game so this was quite new to me. I learned lots of fascinating information about pheasants. Did you know that a pheasant needs a hanging time of five to seven days or more? This is one of the longest hanging times needed for birds. Interesting. I'm glad I received pheasant breasts because I'm not sure I was up for plucking the tail feathers one by one in order to preserve the skin. By the way, the skin of pheasant is what gives it a distinctive taste. Without it the meat will taste like skinned partridge or you guessed it chicken.

One word of caution when eating any wild game. Watch out for buckshot. My younger son was the lucky recipient of one piece of buckshot in his pheasant breast.

Darina Allen's Forgotten Skills of Cooking was a tremendous help to me, but the one thing she did not say is to cook the meat in bacon fat. While I have only cooked this recipe once, hopefully more pheasant will be given to me, I think the bacon fat added a great deal. If you are lucky enough to get pheasant breasts, this is a quick and easy recipe. The website Field was also very helpful and provided the inspiration for this recipe.

We had one cooked breast leftover for the next day. I cut it up and used it as a filling for quesadillas. It was wonderful. You could also use any extra in omelets, fried rice, or in a salad.

Happy cooking and eating! Email with any thoughts or suggestions!

Shrimp and broccoli with pasta and Balsamic-glazed Brussels sprouts are also new recipes added this week.