Pot-roast pheasant with pearl barley & stuffed onions - Good Food Middle East

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil, for frying
• 1 large pheasant crown (legs removed and kept for the stuffing – see below)
• 1 large onion, finely diced
• 3 garlic cloves, grated
• 1 parsnip, peeled and diced
• 50g pearl barley
• 200ml dry cider
• 400ml fresh chicken stock
• 3 thyme sprigs
• 100g small wild mushrooms or chestnut mushrooms, quartered if large
• 1 Braeburn apple, peeled and chopped into small cubes
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 2 small onions (just bigger than a golf ball), peeled but left whole
• 2 pheasant legs, bones removed and minced with the skin (ask your butcher to do this – see tip)
• 50g pork sausagemeat
• 2 juniper berries, toasted and crushed
• 1 garlic clove, grated
• 1 tbsp fresh breadcrumbs
• 50g sprout tops or cavolo nero, stalks removed
• small pinch of ground mace
• 1 tbsp grated chestnuts
• 1 small garlic clove
• 3 tbsp rapeseed oil
• zest ½ lemon
• 6 sage leaves, fried until crisp, to serve