Take the legs of the birds and place in a heavy-bottomed pan, completely cover them with oil and cook very slowly at 70c for 2 hours. Leave submerged in the hot oil until serving.
In a medium hot deep, sauté pan, gently sweat half the onion with a little rapeseed oil. When they’ve sweated to clear, add the 300g of spelt. Coat in the oil and then add cold water to cover.
Then bring to the boil and season with Hebridean sea salt and ground white pepper and cook gently.
Add in 2 freshly peeled and finely diced Jerusalem artichoke to the Spelt mix, and then simmer the whole lot for 16 – 18 mins till cooked through.
Top up the water as required. Don’t let the mixture dry out while it’s cooking. Once it’s cooked through and all the water is absorbed, put the pan to one side.
While this is cooking through, prepare the butternut squash, by cooking in a very hot oven – 230 Degrees C. put the slices onto an oiled baking sheet and roast for around 12 mins. I like to use Rapeseed oil to cook them in.
Meantime, deep fry the ripped the Curly Kale leaves until crispy, retaining their vivid green colour.
Drain well and keep to one side.
Thinly slice the remaining artichoke and deep fry until golden and crispy, drain and set aside.
For the sweet and sour brambles– blitz half the punnet of brambles in a food processor adding a pinch of castor sugar. Sauté the rest of the finely diced onion, and sweat it in a heavy bottomed pan - such as a sauté pan, adding 100ml of red wine vinegar, bring to the boil and reduce by half. And then add 50 ml of runny honey and bring back to the boil.
Remove from heat and stir in the pureed brambles. Slice the remaining brambles horizontally and stir into the vinegar, honey and pureed bramble mix.
In a hot sauté pan, fry the bird breasts skin side down and the haggis balls in unsalted butter, for only 45 seconds. Turn, and brown on the underside for a further 20 seconds, then turns back over.
Put the whole pan with the breasts and haggis balls in into a hot oven (230 degrees) and cook for just 2 minutes.
Take the pan out the oven and remove the grouse breasts and haggis balls and leave somewhere warm and allow to rest for 3 minutes. Meanwhile add 150ml of double cream to the pan and put back onto heat and add the cooked spelt and reheat. Season as required
Place a warm disc of butternut squash onto the plate and top with a spoonful of the spelt, place a grouse leg onto the spelt along with some crispy kale, and an artichoke crisp, carve the grouse breast and also place on top of the spelt, to the side serve a haggis ball and then drizzle the plate with the sweet and sour brambles.
