Feathers, The Game Larder by Jose Souto

Dan Williams reviews the newest addition to chef Jose Souto’s excellent cookery books. “Feathers, The Game Larder” is everything you would expect, and more!

With the game season looming once again, I’m sure many of us will be looking for new ways to enjoy the fruits of our labours after a shoot. If you are one of those people, this book is well worth adding to your reading list. Feathers is the second book to come from The Game Larder series from chef Jose Souto and photographer Steve Lee. Following on from their first book (Venison) this book concentrates, as the title suggests, solely on the delights of cooking game birds of the British Isles.

Don’t be fooled though, this is more than just a cookbook! A chunky 246-page hardback, it will command a place of honour on your bookshelf. The photography within its pages is wonderful, with images captured by Steve Lee over the four seasons it took to put the book together. Not only are there plenty of images from shoot days, but also some wonderful landscapes, dogs, guns and birds of prey too. There is plenty to read before you get into sticking your apron on and trying your hand at one of the many recipes as well.

Souto covers various subjects including guns, cartridges and a little bit of a background to the birds we are lucky enough to be able to shoot here in the UK. There are also a few pages dedicated to the art of falconry – the author is a keen falconer and uses the method to hunt game birds for the table, which makes for a really interesting read.

The book covers some of the basics of game bird cooking, such as plucking and butchering, but also has a few recipes that I don’t think I would be quite brave enough to have a go at. Having said that, there are also plenty of dishes that don’t look massively challenging, and I am most certainly going to be having a crack at some of them in the coming months. So, if like me your current game menu consists of game pie and pheasant goujons, this book may be a bit of a game changer, if you’ll excuse the pun!

Review by Dan Williams. Check out his awesome shooting blog here

RRP: £25

www.merlinunwin.co.uk