Clodagh McKenna's roast thyme and rosemary partridge with blackberry sauce

Game season is well under way, so turn your attention to this wonderful source of wild meat. There is so much interesting game available at the moment — partridge, pheasant, grouse, venison, hare, pigeon, rabbit and many more. A partridge costs about £5 and all good butchers stock it as well as some supermarkets, including Waitrose.

There are many reasons to eat wild meat. Firstly, it’s so full of flavour: the animals feed on what they can naturally forage — grass, herbs, leaves — and most are not being exposed to antibiotics. For the meat, the benefits are those of any grass-fed, lean cut.

They’re all very high in iron and protein, and almost completely fat-free, hence why I like to smear it with butter. In general, game meats are the easiest and fastest to cook; a partridge or grouse will take you just 20 minutes and little preparation.

Besides this, we’re all conscious of living a more sustainable life and eating game is definitely one of the best things to do in the quest to be more green. There are very few miles that the meat has to travel to get to a table, and no chemicals or feed are used in the process. Win, win, win.

You can champion folks supporting our most sustainable meat, by nominating them for the Eat Game awards. There are many unsung heroes in game cuisine, so head to eatgameawards.co.uk.

Try serving this dish with any of these alongside it: buttered winter greens, colcannon (smashed potato with shredded cabbage folded through), celeriac puree, creamed leeks, parsnip purée, or roasted butternut squash. It is the perfect meal now that the nights are drawing in.

Ingredients

• 2 partridges

• 1 tbsp butter

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 2 sprigs of fresh thyme and rosemary, halved

• Sea salt, freshly ground black pepper

• For the blackberry sauce

• 100g fresh blackberries

• 50g sugar

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/Gas Mark 6.

2. Wash and pat dry the partridges and set aside. Heat the olive oil and butter in a frying pan and brown the partridge on all sides until golden. Place them in a roasting tin and put the halved sprigs of thyme and rosemary in the bird’s cavity, then season with salt and black pepper. I smear a bit of butter over the skin, or line it with streaky bacon, but this is optional.

3. Roast the birds in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes or until cooked through and the juices run clear when a skewer is inserted into the leg.

4. While the partridges are roasting, make the blackberry sauce. Place the berries and sugar in a saucepan over a medium heat and stir. Once the sugar has dissolved, reduce the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes. Then remove from the heat and that’s the sauce made.

5. Remove the birds from the oven once cooked and put on warmed plates. Drizzle the sauce around them.

Follow Clodagh on Instagram @clodagh_mckenna

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Clodagh McKenna's celeriac soup with sage and hazelnut pesto