The Surgery - Advice on buying game

Dear Surgery: I want to add some seasonal dishes to my menu. Have you any advice on buying game?

The Surgery says:

Because it is free-range, often wild, lean and low in fat, game meat has certainly become a very popular option in recent years as it is seen as a "healthy" alternative. Gone are the days when most game was supplied by dodgy characters knocking on the back door with game of unspecified origin or dubious quality.

Game is very versatile and can be used in salads, casseroles or simply roasted or barbecued. Each game bird or animal has its own season and it's a selling point in pubs to offer these on the menu at the right time. For example, October is great for partridge, roe deer and snipe. As Christmas approaches, pheasants, mallard, teal and geese come into their own.

It's always advisable to find out the provenance of whatever you buy and make sure anything you buy isn't simply frozen from the previous season. You won't be doing yourself any favours if a customer sees "local partridge" advertised on a menu in July, when the partridge season runs from September 1 to February 1.

A number of country pubs are situated close to estates and buying game from the local shoots may be an option, but there are a number of high-class licensed game dealers and butchers in the country.

A list can be found at www.gametoeat.co.uk. Most cookbooks contain a range of game recipes, but one of the best books on the subject is The Game & Fish Cookbook, published by the Game Conservancy Trust.

See www.gct.org.uk for details.