Lemony partridge with bacon

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

There are plenty of partridge recipes about and needless to say many of them use those multi ingredient sauces which take longer to put together than actually cooking the bird. Couldn't find one using lemons so I did my own.

First, brown the bird off with a little oil; I use the wok so you can swirl it around. Set it aside to cool off a bit. Meantime cut a lemon in half and then cut one half into four quarters.

Squeeze one quarter over the bird in a casserole dish and rub in the juice. Salt and pepper it and rub that in. Then wrap streaky bacon around the bird and secure with toothpicks. Shove the used lemon segement into the cavity.

Add 200 ml of chicken stock and any vegetables you like: I added broad beans and halved cherry tomatoes. Then add the remaining 3 pieces of lemon. Don't squeeze them or the juice will overpower everything else.

I actually chopped up 2 more rashers of streaky bacon, fried them until brown and threw them in as well.

Put on the casserole lid and bake for 30 mins at 160C. Take off the lid and cut open the bacon wrap and peel the bits back. Leave off the lid and back in the oven for 15 mins for the breast to brown.

That's it. It's delicious.