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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NDwalleyes" data-source="post: 56701" data-attributes="member: 218">Over my years of guiding, I have handled thousands of pheasants. There are two reasons people soak birds. 1) To help remove any areas of blood clots, feathers, and shot that may be in the meat, this generally only takes less than an hour of soaking to prep them for cleaning and packaging. 2) To help remove any game tastes (some are more sensitive to this than others). Salt does enhance flavor, but remember that water follows higher concentrations of salt. Be very careful not to use too much salt in any brine or you will draw moisture out of your meat. I have heard of people using milk too. The mistakes most people make, like muskiemaniac said, is over cooking foul. Over cooked is the cause of almost all "gamey" taste. I am willing to bet most have not tasted the true flavor of pheasant because they do too much prep work to the meat and follow that by over cooking it. Well cooked and cared for pheasant has a very mild almost earthy flavor without seasonings.The other big mistake people make is not taking care of their meat. Just like deer hunting, get the meat cooled down ASAP. After a walk, take 2 minutes and rip the breast bone out of the bird and toss them (wings and all) into a cooler of ice in the back of your truck. Clean the guts off the leg portion, leaving some ID feathers/feet and throw them in too. Especially on these warm days, birds lying in the back of a truck all day, are going to taste bad simply because they spent the afternoon in the sun riding around in your truck bed geting dusty. Remember, you are going to eat these things so take care of themThe best pheasant I think is simply cleaned, soaked for 1 hour in 1/2 cup olive oil and 1/2 cup of soy, then seasoned with Lowrey's, prime rib rub or similar. Grilled to slightly rare. I like to dip my bites in a mix of sour cream and horseradish.</blockquote>

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