Pheasant - A Recipe for its Titey

Pheasant found in Nepal

Pheasant meat?  It's A-w-e-s-o-m-e!

If you have never tasted pheasant meat then consider yourself unlucky, contrary to me who had been hunting pheasants for years but never tasted it. Why? Obviously because I was a vegetarian!:p

I broke my ten year long vow of vegetarianism because of the taste my buds felt one night. Hungry and tired, we were back home that night, jubilant after having shot three pheasants. Boys were discussing frantically as to what culinary methods should be applied for those pheasants, one male and two females.
If you are acquainted with pheasant meat, then you sure have noticed that meat from a male pheasant is usually tough and female pheasants are t-e-n-d-e-r.:D The older the pheasants are, the tougher their meat tends to be.

So that night, we decided to prepare Titey ( pronounced /tIte/ ), an age old process of preparing fowls. The acknowledgements for the cuisine goes to the indigenous people of the Republic of Nepal. I am not sure whether any country has its people preparing Titey like we do in Nepal. If Titey is the unique taste of Nepal, then I gotta be proud!:)

Hunting Pheasants- Method 3- Using Intoxicants

Raksi being brewed

The method I'm  going to explain today is for those who are not into hunting as a profession or those who do not possess hunting rifles. It's a simple method by which you can capture the pheasants which frequent around your fields or homes. Follow the instructions and you can  have a change to your palate. This method is often used  in the villages of Nepal.

What you need is a handful of jaand, in the solid form.
Jaand is prepared from millet. First you need to boil some millet with appropriate amount of water. When you can feel with your fingers that the millet grains have become soft, take the jaand out of the pot and spread it on a sack. Mix some marcha( basically it is yeast) thoroughly with the cooked millet.

When the jaand is a bit cool, you need to store it in a plastic drum. The surrounding of the drum should be warm; during winter wrapping warm blankets around the drum is suggested. Wrapping warm materials around the drum is suggested for warm weather too. Wait for 3 to 5 days until the room gets filled with the intoxicating aroma of the jaand that has woken. That's what the Nepalese say for the jaand which has become ready for serving.

Hunting Pheasants Method 2: Using Snares

 

      The figure posted above shows the most effective snare used by the Nepali hunters to trap a pheasant. The red string goes up and is tied to a bent branch, usually small. The string used is normally a cobbler's string of good quality and should be black in color. Cobblers usually use this string to sew the leather; it is strong and thin. 

      

 First the hunter visits the place where the pheasants are noticed frequently.. Observing the routes of the pheasants, he blocks most of them with thorns so that the pheasant when it has to run, runs only along the route predefined by the hunter. Two strong stakes are driven into the soil, with space cut for the blue sick to be latched. Latched doesn't mean that the blue stick gets fixed there, it has to be adjusted in a such a way that even a slight pressure on it will make the bent branch rush up, tightening the lasso around the fowl's neck or sometimes around the body. The red string is a lasso, when the pheasant tries to run through, it pushes the blue stick and instantly when the bent branch is free from the tension, it shoots upwards. That should be enough for the bird because there is no chance that it will break free from the strong string, it is often noticed that the bird dies while trying to free itself from the lasso. I hope you understand how that works.

        

 The hunters should be careful not to chase the birds the wrong way, dogs are not allowed. Chasing the birds is not a proper way for this snare to work. We need to make some soft noise and make them feel that they can get away without the need of a sudden flight. The hunters move in a semi-circular pattern towards the snare without trying to get too close to the birds. The birds not startled but smelling the presence of people will try to flee from that place in an unhurried pace. 

        
The height of the snare is a matter of consideration,  the lasso should be exactly placed as high as a cock's height and wide enough. The stick should be placed in such a height that the bird which usually runs with its head bent low, should push it with its upper part of the body.
        
 We don't use sticks and strings of some flashy color as that can make the birds wary.
            
Puja is done for a pheasant caught in a trap too. Some feathers are plucked, some blood dropped on the leaves and the pheasant held around the body is rotated seven times around the newly built shrine of seven feathers and seven leaves. The hunters believe that in doing so they please the deity of the forests and he/she gives more of the game.

Pheasant Hunting-Method 1

  Pheasant Kalij (lophura leucomelanos)known as Kalij inNepali, is a favourite game bird of the Nepalese people.It has been hunted for thousands of years. Farmers usually hunt them down with guns and snares because they are considered as an invasive species as they consume and disperse seeds of invasive species.The other reason for this species of bird being hunted so wildly is the high quality of meat. Hunting is also a favorite past time and I guess most Kalij hunters are into it not because of the meat or plumes but for the thrill and excitement in it.

                               

Various methods of hunting are practiced in Nepal and we will try to inform you about them as we go on. The first and foremost method of hunting practice in Nepal will be dealt with in this post.

                         

 It starts with finding out the nesting place of this bird. Hunters go into the forest and try to find the droppings of the birds under the trees. If they find fresh droppings under a tree, they get confirmed that the birds/bird nest/s above. Nesting doesn't mean that the birds build a nest on a tree like other birds but they just perch on the branches and sleep for the night. Usually, and unless threatened, these birds nest on the same tree. For your information, the droppings of Kalij are exactly the same in color and size with that of hens and cocks. A cock Kalij is black in color whereas the hen is brown. X2X6ERZ5D64R

                             

 Another method of finding a Kalij's dwelling is going into the jungle in the evening and squatting quietly under the bushes or behind trees and listening. Listening all the jungle sounds....intently. When this listening habit develops you will be able to distinguish all the sounds of birds and animals running under the bushes towards their homes. If you don't listen any sounds of movement, then you might get startled when the Kalij suddenly takes to flight from three feet beyond you....hehe. Yeah, this Kalij is known to be the greatest hider, it will try to hide from you even when you are stoning at the bush where you feel it has hidden itself.

                          

Whatever....... around sunset, the bird hops up to the branch of its choice. If there are lots of them and are unaware of your presence, they might start calling out to their friends and they sure make a lot of noise when they feel secure, usually during the time of their nesting. This moment, I feel, is the most enthralling moment for a hunter; you are hidden somewhere and you see a hell of a lot of these birds flying into the foliage. 

So, this is how the hunters track down the tree and become specific on the branches also because the branch the bird is perched on may not be seen or found later when it gets dark. When the hunter gets sure about, on which branch which bird is perching for the night, then he can come later to shoot it down or if he has brought his gun with him then out of mercy he can shoot instantly as soon as the birds start nodding off. The common practice is that usually people think hunting a sleeping creature is not ethical so you will have two choices; shoot it down as soon as it perches on a branch (and it is a bit risky; the Kalij also has one pair of eyes and it can fly away , seeing you aiming a gun at it) or you can ignore everything about ethics and shoot it down later when it has fallen into a deep sleep. 

The most interesting thing is that if the bird is in a deep sleep, it will not fly away even when the bullets whiz through nearby its ears or neither from the loud bang of the gun cutting through the stillness of the jungle at night. We have even shot at a Kalij about 12 times, loading and missing, loading and missing but it was still there......in deep sleep....... as if teasing us.

                          

If the hunters plan to shoot down the pheasant late in the night then they have one preparation which is very essential...a powerful torchlight. The torch light that has a pin point focus is considered as the best. The hunter goes below the tree restricting himself from making loud sounds. ....finds the best place to shoot from. The angle from where you can view the bird's torso is the best angle but if other birds are nearby, the hunter may decide to shoot from such an angle so that the pellets hit the most number of birds.......hmmmmm... 

The shooter might point the torch himself or if he has an assistant, the assistant(Light man) points the torch from behind the shooter's shoulder, along the barrel of the gun and straight to the bird above. The others, if there are any, get scattered below the tree up to 30 metres wide in an arch ........they wait in suspense...when the shooter's gun clicks and comes the BANG ? 

                                     

The bang comes and might shake the other hunters' heart if they were not prepared for it. Immediately after the bang, if the bird has been hit then there comes a THUD!!! on the ground and that means it is spot dead and the hunters can rejoice but if there is no thud then the hunters remain quiet to listen whether the bird flew away or not..... if not then they can start loading another round in their Bharuwa Banduk. Sometimes it also happens that after the bang the bird might fly for some distance and fall on the ground so keeping quiet at the time of the shooting is very important because the hunters can listen in which direction it has flown and about how far it has fallen, because if they don't do that then searching a fowl in the jungle under the bushes at night and finding it lying dead there is completely impossible. 

Once we found a shot bird, that we had been searching for about two hours, in an area where no one had guessed. It was about fifty meters down from where we were searching and it was mainly because of luck that we found it....we decided to go home that way...tired and hungry and utterly disappointed with the thought that 'there lay our game and some villager would find it the next day in broad daylight'.

                             

When the hunters find the dead bird then it's pure enjoyment and celebration. The shooter plucks out some feather from the dead bird and does some puja to make the Gods of the Jungle happy ...that's just a formality and we don't need to be a priest or anything to be able to do that. Just say to the jungle that 'Thanks for this game..... we hope you will let us have more of such trophies......and protect us in the jungle!!!'

                                 Then the hunters go home happily !!!!!