Chef Phil Vickery is a big fan of the beautiful game if it comes from small shoots which show care for both countryside and quarry. Here he shares three dishes that could get you hooked too

Game has been a big part of my life for many years. The first time I remember shooting game was poaching a hen partridge, with an air rifle, some 30 years ago, while I worked part-time on a farm.

By this time I knew I wanted to be a chef, and the only thing on my mind was to finish work, get home and cook my lovely little bird. So I quickly cycled home with it tucked into my blue boiler-suit. Once home, I set about gleaning as much information from the only cookbook I had, Warnes Everyday Cookery, published in 1937 (I still have it to this day). In this, given to me by a caretaker from the church hall, are nearly 400 pages of recipes and fantastic colour plates. To a budding chef, this was compelling reading. On page 20, there is a whole page on how to choose game and poultry, including hares and rabbits, moorhens, plovers, wheatears, ortolans and partridges. I studied the book carefully and decided I had a young English partridge!

I prepared and cooked the bird exactly how the book described, roasted with flat mushrooms, and served on a croute of fried bread. As I ate my first game bird (it wasn't particularly good I recall, a bit dry and stringy), I felt at one with nature, almost the hunter-gatherer. Sounds a bit twee, but it's true, and my love of game had well and truly started.

Over the years I have been on many shoots, and the most important thing to me is to ensure that nothing gets wasted. At the end of any shoot I attend, I gather up all the game the keeper has not sold or given to the guns, and take them back to the hotel or restaurant I am currently working at, and nothing is wasted: I make terrines, pates, sausages, roasts, soups and stocks from all the bones...The law has changed slightly now, and you can't take any game to a restaurant or hotel kitchen: it all has to be prepared separately, and you have to have a game licence. Sadly, because of this, young chefs no longer see how to pluck and draw a bird, or understand the importance of hanging...

Commercial shoots, which rear and release tens of thousands of birds, have become a large part of the rural economy, and many syndicates will now pay handsomely to shoot driven pheasant and partridge. I have no problem with small shoots shooting small bags, provided that all the game that has been shot is collected, dispatch humanely and then sold quickly. Where I do have an issue is witI1 massive shoots that will regularly shoot something like 1,000 birds a day. To me this is not real shooting at all, but mass destruction, 'no real care for either the quarry or the countryside.

Real shooting to me is what is called 'walking up' or 'rough shooting’ This is basically a couple of guns and a couple of dogs walking I rough ground. The occasional pheasant, partridge or, if you're really lucky, a woodcock may be flushed out. I have been on some shoots where the total bag for the day (eight hours' walking) has perhaps only been four pheasants and a woodcock. The bag is shared in the end, and everyone goes home tired but satisfied.

I have learned a lot about shooting and the rearing of game I Bruce Laughton's keepers, Phil and Bomber, in Nottinghamshire Theirs is a small, well-run and carefully managed shoot. It's so good to see real professionals caring not only about what they do but also about how that business affects the countryside.

Game cookery to me is a fundamental part of the culinary year,

I will always cook and push game. It really has yet to take off if the UK. We touch on it, but we don't embrace the variety and wonderful taste of our unique game. Hopefully my recipes will get you cooking game dishes that are really tasty and different.

ALL PICTURES AND RECIPES TAKEN FROM BRITAIN THE COOKBOOK BY PHIL VICKERY (MITCHELL BEAZLEY, AN IMPRINT OF OCTOPUS PUBLISHING GROUP, £20) WITH PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVE LEE. ARTICLE CURTESY OF FOOD & TRAVEL OCTOBER 2007