Pheasant breast on champagne-cream cabbage

with grapes, bacon, croutons and cranberries

by Johannes King
Söl’ring Hof, Sylt – an exclusive 5-star hotel with a top-class 2-star restaurant

Preparation

champagne cream cabbage

Cut the white cabbage into fine strips and marinate overnight with salt, sugar and champagne vinegar. Cut the vegetable onion into fine strips and sauté in butter without adding colour. Add the marinated white cabbage and sauté further. Deglaze with white wine, add the spices and cook everything in the covered pot for about 1 hour. Add the crème fraîche and simmer for another 10 minutes. Season with a few drops of lemon juice and champagne vinegar as well as a little sugar, pepper and salt. Add the finely chopped fresh mint, whipped cream and champagne à la minute.

mashed potatoes

Boil the potatoes in as little salt water as possible so that no water has to be drained off, but the remaining potato water can be used. Mash the soft potatoes, add some hot milk, cream and some cold butter flakes and stir until smooth. Season lightly with sea salt, white pepper and a hint of nutmeg. The puree should have a creamy consistency.

pheasant breast

Lightly salt and pepper the pheasant breasts from all sides. In a frying pan with foamed butter, fry lightly over a low heat from the skin side. Add the thyme twigs, turn the pheasant breasts several times and fry on a low heat for about 5 minutes. Then wrap loosely in aluminium foil and let rest in a warm place for 10 minutes.

sauce

Chop all the pheasant bones (we also use the legs for the sauce) and fry them slowly in fresh butter and some neutral sunflower oil. Cut the carrots, vegetable onion, celery and mushrooms into small pieces and add the same parts (carrot a little less) and sauté until they are tender. When a brown roasting layer appears at the bottom of the pot, deglaze with a little cognac, cream sherry and Madeira. Add a very strong chicken stock (the bones should not be covered) and simmer for about 40 minutes. Use spices sparingly such as peppercorns, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, bay leaves, allspice, thyme, rosemary and above all juniper (maximum 2 berries). Add the cream and simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes. Strain while pressing out the bones. Reduce the sauce to the desired consistency and season to taste again.

sideboards

Put a thin layer of mashed potatoes on the plate, drape the champagne cream herb and the sliced pheasant breast on top. Lightly salt and pepper the meat again, pour over the short foamed sauce and immediately add the grapes and the bacon. Heat the croutons only very briefly in a pan and pour over the pheasant breast. Finally add the parsley and a few cranberries. Add the remaining cranberries in the bowl. Pheasant meat is very sensitive to heat and should therefore not be fried too hot. Wrap loosely in aluminium foil means: crumple a piece of aluminium foil a little, place the pheasant breasts on top and cover with aluminium foil. If you wrap the pheasant breasts completely in aluminium foil, a heat build-up develops and the meat pulls through too quickly. Make sure you use at least 70 percent pheasant bones and no more than 30 percent vegetables in the sauce. A maximum of 250 ml of sauce is obtained from the bones of two pheasants.

Potato soup with champagne

by Lea Linster
Star chef, Restaurant Lea Linster, near Luxembourg

Preparation

1. for the soup, peel the onion and the garlic and chop finely. Clean the leek, cut lengthwise, rinse thoroughly with cold water and cut into rings. Peel and wash the potatoes, cut them into cubes of approx. 1 ½ cm in size.

2. heat butter in a soup pot, sauté onion and leek for 1 to 2 minutes while stirring. Add the potatoes and garlic. Add the stock, salt and bring to the boil. Cover and cook the vegetables over medium heat for about 25 minutes until soft. After 10 minutes add the wine.

3. in the meantime whip the cold cream half stiff for topping, salt lightly and season with lemon juice and nutmeg. Put the cream in a cool place. Finely grate the parmesan.

4. remove the bark from the white bread for the croutons and cut into cubes. Heat the butter in a frying pan and fry the bread cubes for 3 to 4 minutes until golden brown.

5. Purée the soup in the pot with a hand blender, pass it through a hair sieve and put it back in the pot. Bring the soup to the boil and stir in the champagne. Fill into preheated cups or deep plates and add some cream. Sprinkle with parmesan and butter croutons.

The right storage

Champagne should be stored in a dark, cool place with high humidity (preferably in the cellar). Once the bottle has been opened, it must be drunk. The party shower should not be kept in the fridge for several days. Otherwise the carbonic acid and the aroma will be lost.

The right uncorking

The champagne bottle is turned until the cork pops (do not turn the cork out of the bottle).

The right temperature

Champagne should be between seven and twelve degrees cold when served. If it is cooler, the flavours are still frozen and do not come to the fore. By the way, an absolute no-go: ice cubes in the bubbly. Unless you drink specially designed champagne (such as Moët & Chandon Ice Impérial).

The right glass

Champagne flutes are less suitable for perfect champagne enjoyment. Better: Burgundy wine glasses. Here the luxury drink can unfold its aromas. Important: Always hold the glass at the bottom and do not cling to the glass belly. The body heat only heats up the champagne and it becomes varnished more quickly.

How to pour champagne properly

Champagne should be poured slowly and evenly. This allows a harmonious formation of the pearl wreath. If the wine is poured in two steps, the wreath will last longer.

The bottle should always be held at the bottom and not at the neck.

Fill the champagne into the glass in several steps, depending on the size of the glass and the degree of foam formation.

The glasses should be filled with champagne to a maximum of two thirds. This leaves enough space to absorb the scents.

After opening

Champagne should be given the opportunity to breathe so that its aromas can fully unfold. Once the bottle has been opened, there is no way to preserve the unique qualities of champagne for more than a few hours.

An open champagne bottle should be drunk as soon as possible. With a special pressure cap, a half-full bottle can be kept refrigerated for approx. 24 hours without any major loss of quality.

Strictly defined region

In many parts of the world, champagne is considered the most festive of all beverages. It is regarded as the noblest of all sparkling wines and is a legally protected brand. A champagne must come from a strictly defined region in France. This area measures around 33,500 hectares and was already defined in 1927.

Strictly defined rules

The grapes for the champagne are harvested according to strictly defined rules in the Champagne wine region (French: la Champagne) in France. Champagne must be produced in accordance with rules controlled by independent bodies.

The most important factors are the strictly defined production area; the cultivation requirements such as planting density; bottle fermentation; compulsory manual harvesting; yield restriction; the gentle, immediate pressing, the prohibition of the transvasier procedure and the minimum storage time on the yeast (compared to the traditional method, this simplifies the time-consuming, personnel-intensive steps of yeast removal).

Grape varieties are crucial

The production of champagne is based almost exclusively on only three grape varieties: the red Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grape varieties and the white Chardonnay grape variety. The Arbane, Petit Meslier, Pinot Gris Vrai (Pinot Gris) and Pinot Blanc (Pinot Blanc) varieties have also been approved in accordance with the specifications – but these have almost disappeared in the meantime, triggered by the phylloxera crisis.

The mixture of the varieties determines the character of each champagne. In one part of the Champagne, the Côte des Blancs, the Blanc de Blancs, the Chardonnay cuvées, are produced. Pinot Noir gives the wine its fullness, Chardonnay its finesse, Pinot Meunier its fruitiness. Pinot Noir accounts for 38.4% of the Champagne vineyard area, Pinot Meunier for 33.3% and Chardonnay for 28.3%.

Assemblage (the compilation)

First the base wine is produced from the must by alcoholic fermentation. Some producers then allow malolactic fermentation (biological degradation of the acidity). Once this process is complete, the base wine can be put together for bottle fermentation. About 80 % of all champagnes are blended from base wines of different vintages to an assemblage and come without vintage indication on the market (it is called BSA = brut sans année).

If champagne is primarily about freshness, it will open as quickly as possible after disgorging. But even after disgorging, it continues to develop in the bottle. While the pressure of the carbonic acid slowly decreases, the taste unfolds more harmoniously and the aromas become more intense.

Simple champagnes without vintage usually reach their peak within two years. However, good vintage champagnes can last ten years or longer. The following rule applies here: the longer the champagne has been on the yeast before, the slower a champagne in the bottle develops into a negative.

It is good to note that some champagne producers, especially independent winegrowers, now mark the time of disgorging on the bottle. This gives the consumer more control. Otherwise, you only may draw certain conclusions about the elapsed time since disgorging from the shape of the cork after opening.

Attention: For perfect enjoyment, you should take care not to expose champagne to too much light. Like other sparkling wines, champagne reacts sensitively, especially with fluorescent tubes. In expert circles they speak of the so-called “light taste”. This will be produced through the release of sulphur compounds.

Champagne is available in different bottle sizes. The standard size is 0.75 L or 1/1 bottle. Other bottle sizes come with own names, mostly based on biblical background. Bottles beyond the Jeroboam (3 litres) are complex to produce and therefore expensive. Accordingly, champagnes in such bottle sizes are rarely available.

• Quart/Piccolo = 0,2 litres
• Demi/Fillette = 0,375 litres
• Boules = 0,75 litres
• Magnum = 1,5 litres
• Jeroboam = 3 litres
• Rehoboam = 4,5 litres
• Methuselah = 6 litres
• Salmanazar = 9 litres
• Balthazar = 12 litres
• Nebuchadnezzar = 15 litres
• Melchior = 18 litres
• Sovereign = 26,25 litres
• Primate = 27 litres
• Melchisedech = 30 litres