This will make your home smell like an Austro-Hungarian farmhouse kitchen – a good thing in my book. Partridges (1 per person) would work equally well, though the cooking time will be shorter.

Serves 4

2 pheasants (about 650g-700g each), plucked and gutted
Salt and pepper
500g red cabbage
2 apples
2 sprigs of thyme
Butter
Olive oil
125g unsmoked streaky bacon
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
2 plump cloves garlic, chopped
8 juniper berries, crushed
1 strip of orange peel
1 bay leaf
180ml red wine
3 heaped tbsp redcurrant jelly
2 tbsp redwine vinegar

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Season the pheasants inside and out. Remove the hard core from the cabbage and thinly shred the leaves. Peel and core the apples. Slice one apple thinly and add to the cabbage; put half the other apple inside each pheasant, along with a sprig of thyme.

On the hob, heat a knob of butter and a glug of oil in a casserole dish large enough to hold both pheasants, with a couple of inches to spare above them. Brown the birds well on all sides, one at a time. Remove the pheasants from the casserole dish and put to one side.

Reserve 2 rashers of bacon, then chop the rest into strips and add to the fat. Cook for a few minutes until the bacon starts to brown, add the onions, garlic, juniper, orange peel and bay leaf, then sweat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally until the onion is soft. Add the cabbage and apple, then cook for 20 minutes, stirring every few minutes to stop it burning. Mix in the wine and redcurrant jelly, season and bring to a simmer. Place the pheasants, breast side down, on top of the cabbage, cover and cook in the oven for 40 minutes.

Now remove the lid and stir the vinegar into the cabbage. Turn the pheasants breast side up. Cut the remaining bacon into 3 or 4 pieces, spread them a little by bashing with your fist, then drape over the pheasant breasts. Return the dish to the oven, without the lid, for 20 minutes. The pheasants are done when the legs pull away easily from the carcass. Hoick the birds out at the table and carve.

Mashed spuds or celeriac are good for sopping up the juices – as are your normal Christmas trimmings, particularly the bread sauce and roasties.

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