Grouse breast recipe: pan-fried with skirlie and red wine gravy

There is no need to roast a grouse whole to eat one well. Take the breasts off, keep the carcasses for stock, and supper is done in the time it takes the gravy to reduce: three minutes in a hot pan and the birds are ready.

Underneath them goes skirlie, the Scottish oatmeal and onion dish that has been soaking up game juices for centuries. It is oatmeal fried with onion in fat until it is moist and savoury, and it does much the same job on the plate as game chips and fried crumbs do with a roast bird, with a good deal less washing up. A red wine and redcurrant gravy, built on stock from the carcasses, finishes it.

Serving suggestion

Two spoonfuls of skirlie under the breasts, the gravy over the top and traditional accompaniments alongside. In the plating photographed for Fieldsports Journal, where this recipe first appeared, the birds are served with a potato gratin, which is a straightforward way to make the plate go further when there are guests to feed.

Tips for the best pan-fried grouse breasts

The skirlie wants to be moist rather than dry, so add a little more fat if the oatmeal looks thirsty once it has gone into the pan. It will sit happily somewhere warm while the gravy reduces and the breasts cook, so make it first and forget about it.

Butter burns quickly over a fierce heat, which is why the oil goes in with it and the pan stays at medium. The timings are a guide rather than a rule: a large breast may want another 30 seconds, and the point is to take the meat off pink rather than to hit the clock.

Do not waste the carcasses. They are what the grouse stock in the gravy is made from, and where there is no time for stock-making the recipe allows a good chicken stock instead.