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The regional table / South Dakota

Roast Pheasant with Cream Gravy

Published September 23, 2026 · South Dakota

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A wild pheasant carries almost no fat of its own, so every extra minute in the oven comes straight out of the breast.

The ring-necked pheasant is not an American bird, and the federal record of how it arrived is unusually clean. Farmers' Bulletin 390 of the Bureau of Biological Survey, "Pheasant Raising in the United States" by Henry Oldys, issued 18 April 1910, prints the shipment that finally took: "In 1880 Hon. O. N. Denny, then United States consul-general at Shanghai, shipped a lot of ringnecks to Oregon. All died on the way but 12 cocks and 3 hens, which were liberated 12 miles from Portland, near the mouth of the Willamette River." A second lot went out the next year to his brother's ranch in Linn County, the birds spread, Oregon opened a season in 1892, and Oldys records that the successful stocking of Oregon at once set every other state writing for birds. South Dakota bought, and the buying is in the county papers. The Vermillion Plain Talk of 18 January 1912 carried a state item out of Pierre reporting that the game department's two hundred Chinese pheasants, bought at a cost of $1,200, had been distributed the spring before; by 18 September 1913 the same paper, angry about prairie chickens shot out of season, was asking what was going to happen to the Chinese pheasants the state had purchased at a cost of $5,000 and turned loose to propagate.

They propagated. In May 1924 the Plain Talk reported a request to the state game warden for a short open season on cock pheasants in Butte County, where in places the birds had become a nuisance; in September 1929 it printed the commission's rulings for the fall, a continued closed season on the native prairie chicken and grouse and a considerably shorter season on pheasants, farmers having urged, in the face of a feared grasshopper plague, that bird life be conserved as far as possible. A South Dakota Guide, the Federal Writers' Project volume of 1938, says the state is "Noted for its pheasant hunting (two million birds have been shot in a single season)", and it puts the starting point not at any famous farm but at an aviary in Watertown: "The first ring-necked pheasants planted in South Dakota were distributed from this point. The birds were purchased from a breeder in New York and shipped to Watertown." Which leaves the cooking, and the cooking has its own literature. Bulletin 467 of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "The Food Value and Uses of Poultry" by Helen W. Atwater of the Office of Home Economics, dated 29 December 1916, tables the edible portion of a pheasant at 69.9 percent water and 24.4 percent protein, worth 640 calories to the pound — the leanest bird on the page, against 730 for quail, 760 for young chicken and 1,475 for goose. Atwater also states the rule this recipe runs on: "if the bird is small, there is danger of the interior drying out with prolonged heat, and it should be cooked as quickly as possible. Hence the rule that the smaller the bird the hotter the oven and the shorter the period of cooking should be." Forty-four years later the South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service published fact sheet FS 39, "Cooking South Dakota Pheasant", the fruit of what it calls a project undertaken by several state agencies to standardize pheasant recipes; its roast pheasant covers the breast and all meaty portions with strips of salt pork or bacon, sets a 400°F oven for fifty to sixty minutes, and warns that "Pheasant need not be well done. Too long a cooking period should be avoided." The cream is from the same sheet, which pours cream over a roasting bird and stirs it into the pan juices, and from its "Pheasant in Cream", which ends: "Add more cream if the meat gets dry." The gravy quantities below were worked out for this page.

Why this version works

Hot oven, short roast. A 400°F oven looks aggressive for a two-pound bird and is exactly what the federal bulletin prescribes for one: small birds dry from the inside out, so the heat has to be high enough to brown before the centre overcooks. Fifty minutes at 400°F costs the breast less than ninety minutes at 325°F, whatever the slower oven promises.

Cream takes the heat that milk cannot. A pan gravy on pheasant is thin stuff — a lean bird gives little fat and less gelatine — so it needs body from somewhere. Heavy cream carries enough fat to hold together over direct heat while it reduces, where milk thins, curdles and tastes of nothing. The 1960 sheet allows sour or sweet cream; sour cream goes in off the heat.

The bacon is structural, not a garnish. FS 39 has you completely cover the breast and all meaty portions with strips of salt pork or bacon and tie them in place, and the reason is in the 1916 table: a pheasant has almost no fat of its own to render over itself. The bacon supplies the coat of hot fat that a chicken brings with it, which is the same thing Atwater describes basting doing — a coating that "aids in keeping in the remainder of the juices".

The legs go back in; the breast does not. Breast and leg are done at different moments on any bird and further apart on a bird that runs for a living. Pull the whole pheasant when the breast reads 160°F, cut the legs off while it rests and give them another ten minutes in the pan. That is the only way to serve both parts at their best, and it costs nothing but a carving board.

Ingredient notes

The birds: two young pheasants of about two pounds each, dressed. FS 39 allows one pheasant for two people and gives the age test on the spurs: "The spurs, although present on a young bird, are neither long nor sharp; on an older bird, they are both long and sharp." An old bird roasted this way will be dry and stringy no matter what you do; joint it and braise it in the same cream instead.

Cream and stock: a cup of heavy cream and a cup of chicken stock. If you have the birds' backs and necks, simmer them in the stock while the pheasants roast and you have pheasant stock, which is worth the twenty minutes. Nothing else belongs in this gravy except salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon at the end to stop it tasting flat.

Skin or no skin: hunters mostly skin pheasants rather than pluck them, and the extension roast was written for skinned birds — that is why it calls for so much bacon and so much basting. A plucked, skin-on bird needs the bacon just the same but browns faster, so start checking at forty minutes. Frozen birds should be thawed in the refrigerator and patted bone dry.

Bacon or salt pork: eight thin slices, enough to shingle both breasts and the thighs. Salt pork is the older choice and the more neutral; ordinary bacon brings smoke, which is not a fault here. Thick-cut is a mistake — it will not have rendered by the time the bird is done, and it shields the skin without basting it.

Step by step

  1. Heat the oven and dry the birds. Heat the oven to 400°F. Pat both pheasants dry inside and out, rub the cavities with salt, and put a couple of onion quarters and two thyme sprigs inside each one. Tie the legs loosely together so the bird holds its shape.
  2. Bard and truss. Season the outside with salt and pepper, brush the legs with melted butter, then lay four bacon slices over each bird so the breast and both thighs are covered. Tie them on with two or three loops of string. Set the birds breast up on a rack in a shallow roasting pan — no lid at any point.
  3. Roast hot for forty minutes. Roast for 40 minutes, basting twice with the fat that collects in the pan. The bacon should be shrinking and the pan should be spitting; if it is silent, your oven is running cool and the birds will pay for it.
  4. Strip the bacon and finish. Take the string and the bacon off, put the bacon aside, and return the birds for 8 to 12 minutes to brown the skin. They are done when the thickest part of the breast reads 160°F away from bone. Lift them onto a board and leave them, loosely tented, for 10 minutes.
  5. Take the legs back to the oven. While the breasts rest, cut both legs off each bird and lay them cut side down in the roasting pan among the drippings. Give them 10 minutes in the oven. They will come out at the moment the breast has finished resting.
  6. Build the gravy in the pan. Set the pan over medium heat with about three tablespoons of its fat, scatter over the flour and cook it two minutes, scraping. Pour in the stock and let it thicken, then the cream, and simmer 4 to 5 minutes until it coats a spoon. Season, add the lemon juice, and strain it if you want it smooth.
  7. Carve and serve. Take the breasts off the bone in two whole pieces and slice them across, thickly. Serve each person half a bird — a breast and a leg — with the gravy poured over the meat and the crisped bacon crumbled on top.
If the breast has gone past 170°F and reads dry, carve it thin against the grain, lay the slices in a warm dish and spoon hot gravy over them: cream is the standing remedy for an overcooked lean bird and the reason the old recipes are full of it. If the gravy breaks or tastes flat, take it off the heat, whisk in a splash of cold stock and the lemon juice, and do not boil it again. If the skin is pale when the thermometer says 160°F, run the birds under the broiler for 90 seconds rather than leaving them in the oven — more oven time takes it out of the breast, broiler heat does not.

Storage and make-ahead

Carved meat keeps three days in the refrigerator and is best kept under its gravy in a covered dish, which stops the cut faces drying. Reheat it covered at 300°F just until hot through; a lean bird has no margin for a second cooking, and a microwave will finish what the oven started.

The carcasses are worth more than the leftovers. Break them up, cover with water, simmer an hour with an onion and a bay leaf and you have a stock that is far better than chicken for the next batch of this gravy. Raw birds freeze well for several months; the 1974 South Dakota experiments held pheasants eight months in frozen storage and still got acceptable meat out of them.

What to serve with it

Wild rice, mashed potatoes or buttered noodles — something to take the gravy, since there will be more of it than the meat needs. Against the cream, a sharp vegetable: braised red cabbage, green beans with vinegar, or a plate of dill pickles the way the rest of the state eats them. Beer is the honest drink with it; if you want wine, a dry Riesling stands up to cream better than anything red.

From the recipe box / South Dakota

Roast Pheasant with Cream Gravy

Two young birds blanketed in bacon, roasted hot and fast so the breast does not dry out, and a gravy built in the pan with cream — the method South Dakota's own extension service wrote down in 1960.

Prep
20 min
Cook
1 hr
Total
1 hr 30 min
Serves
4
Calories
590 per serving

Ingredients

Scale

Instructions

  1. Heat the oven to 400°F. Dry the pheasants, salt the cavities and put onion and thyme inside each, then tie the legs.
  2. Season the outside, brush the legs with melted butter, shingle 4 bacon slices over each bird and tie them on. Set breast up on a rack in a shallow pan.
  3. Roast 40 minutes, basting twice with the pan fat.
  4. Remove string and bacon, roast 8–12 minutes more until the breast reads 160°F, then rest the birds 10 minutes under a loose tent.
  5. Cut the legs off each bird and return them to the pan in the oven for 10 minutes while the breasts rest.
  6. Cook the flour in 3 tablespoons of the pan fat for 2 minutes, whisk in the stock, then the cream, and simmer 4–5 minutes. Season and add the lemon juice.
  7. Carve the breasts off the bone and slice thickly. Serve half a bird each with gravy and the crumbled bacon.

Nutrition

Fat36 g (17 g saturated)
Sodium820 mg
Protein55 g
Servinghalf a pheasant with about ¼ cup gravy
Calories590
Cholesterol225 mg
Carbohydrates8 g (3 g sugar, 0 g fiber)

Nutrition is an estimate calculated from the listed ingredients and is provided as a courtesy, not as dietary advice.

Questions readers ask

Can I use sour cream instead?

You can, and the record supports it — the extension recipe for pheasant in cream calls for sour or sweet cream without preference. Stir sour cream in off the heat after the gravy has thickened and never let it boil, or it will curdle. The same sheet also roasts a pheasant under a mixture of cream and a tablespoon of horseradish, which is worth trying once.

Is 160°F not underdone for poultry?

It is lower than the 180°F that the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station used for its roasting trials in Bulletin 622, and that is the point: those birds were cooked to a fixed internal temperature for laboratory comparison, not for the table. The 1960 fact sheet is blunt that pheasant need not be well done. Pull at 160°F, rest ten minutes, and the breast will carry on climbing in the residual heat.

What about an old bird, or a farm-raised one?

An old cock, known by long sharp spurs, should not be roasted whole at all: joint it, brown the pieces and bake them covered in the cream until tender, uncovering at the end to crisp. Farm-raised birds behave much as wild ones — the 1974 South Dakota comparison of wild against pen-raised cocks found little difference in cooking loss or cooking time — but they usually carry a little more fat, so watch the browning.

My birds were skinned in the field. Does this still work?

Yes, and that is the case FS 39 was written for — its roast pheasant is explicitly the method for birds that have been skinned, which is how most South Dakota pheasants are dressed. Skinned birds need every one of the eight bacon slices and one extra basting; check the temperature at 40 minutes, because there is no skin to slow the heat.