Serves 4

This is a quick and easy roast that is perfect near the end of summer. Apples and garlic are roasted alongside the grouse and then mashed together to add depth, flavour and to thicken the gravy, omitting the need to use flour.

Olive oil, to drizzle

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 oven-ready grouse

3 apples, Russets or Braeburns, quartered and cored

2 cinnamon sticks

3-4 fat garlic cloves

Few sprigs of thyme

500ml medium dry cider

2 tbsp runny honey

250ml chicken stock

1 Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas 5. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy-based casserole dish. Once you feel a good heat rising, season, then brown the grouse on all sides for about 5 minutes. Remove the birds from the dish and set aside.

2 Add a little more oil to the dish, then brown the apple quarters on all sides with the cinnamon and garlic for 5 minutes. Nestle the grouse among the apples, then scatter the thyme over and around. Pour in the cider and bring to the boil. Drizzle the honey over the grouse, then roast in the oven for 10-15 minutes. The meat should still be pink and springy to the touch.

3 Remove the dish from the oven and lift out the grouse. Leave the birds to rest in a warm place while you prepare the sauce. Tip everything left in the dish into a sieve set over a saucepan. At this point, the apples and garlic should be very soft. Mash them with a fork to squeeze the flesh from their skins, then push what you can through the sieve with the back of a ladle to extract as much juice and flavour as possible. Discard the solids in the sieve.

4 Reduce the sauce by half, then pour in the chicken stock. Bring to the boil and reduce over a high heat to a gravy consistency. Check for seasoning. Serve the roast grouse on warmed plates drizzled with the cider gravy. Accompany with crisp roast new potatoes and buttered cabbage on the side.

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