Pheasant Casserole with Bacon and Cider

January. The light is thin and the garden has nothing left to give. The pheasant season is running down, and the birds the butcher has now are older, tougher, with legs that have walked a few more miles. These aren't birds for roasting. They need time.

This is what a casserole is for. You brown the pheasant pieces until the skin goes golden and sticky, lay them on a bed of bacon and softened onions, pour in enough cider to come halfway up, and let the oven do the patient work of turning something tough into something tender. The cider goes sweet and deep. The bacon gives its smoke to everything it touches. By the time you lift the lid two hours later, the kitchen smells like the kind of evening you'd cancel plans for.

The apples go in towards the end. Cox's, or whatever's firm and sharp in the bowl. They hold their shape just enough to give you something to bite through, a sweet, sharp counterpoint to the rich, dark sauce. A scattering of parsley. Good bread or mash to catch the juices. We're only making dinner.

I wrote it down in the notebook last winter: pheasant, cider, rain on the window, the lid rattling gently in the oven. Some meals belong to their weather.