105 replies to this topic

[Mallet]

I made the rabbit pâté from Bouchon, substituting snowshow hare for the rabbit, and substituting 3/4 of the chicken liver for canada goose liver. I don't have a terrine dish, so I tried tightly rolling it in plastic wrap, then vacuum-sealing that and cooking it sous-vide at 150F for about 2 hours. I had to make 4 rolls (about 2 inches in diameter), since getting a nice tight package with the saran wrap method is pretty tough. Texturally, the terrine was pretty good, although it didn't really hold together very well (I attribute this to not weighing it down after cooking, again because I have no terrine dish, and also because I didn't line the terrine with anything). Flavour-wise, it was a big hit with my family: full, rich flavour, but not gamy/musky at all.

This was the first time I bothered to save my goose livers: I pledge to save all waterfowl livers from this point on...

[kayb]

Mallet -- re: the succulence of squirrels, have you ever had squirrel and dumplings? Marvelous stuff. I have not hunted squirrels in years, though, since I shot one out of a tree and went to pick him up, only to discover I had only stunned him. Said discovery made when he bit through the web of my hand between my thumb and forefinger. Put me off hunting squirrels for good, but I'll happily cook any that someone else kills.

ETA: And the meat pies look marvelous!

Edited by kayb, 04 January 2012 - 03:05 PM.

[Mallet]

One of my favourite squirrel preparations to date was indeed squirrel stew with drop dumplings (from the Coco cookbook). The recipe called for rabbit, but honestly I think it was better with squirrel. My least favourite part about hunting squirrel (haven't been bitten by one yet) is that you get the occasional one with fleas and/or ticks (I've only ever seen ones with red-legged ticks, so no Lyme disease). I now freeze them whole for about 2 weeks and this effectively gets rid of the ectoparasites and the ick factor.

[budrichard]

Mallet -- re: the succulence of squirrels, have you ever had squirrel and dumplings? Marvelous stuff. I have not hunted squirrels in years, though, since I shot one out of a tree and went to pick him up, only to discover I had only stunned him. Said discovery made when he bit through the web of my hand between my thumb and forefinger. Put me off hunting squirrels for good, but I'll happily cook any that someone else kills.

ETA: And the meat pies look marvelous!

Long ago I decided to only pick up the squirrels I shot with leather gloves on after I saw the size of their teeth! I also only pick them up by the neck from behind so even if they revive after the initial shot, they can be firmly held and throttled by the neck. So far haven't been bitten.

Mallet, your pate needs some fat to hold together. Chicken livers just do not supply enough fat. I do not use wild goose livers in a pate as they and most wild game is very lean. A ceramic terrine is very useful and then the pate can be cooked in a water bath.-Dick

[Mallet]

Revive after the initial shot? Tell me where these zombie squirrels live so that I may never find myself in those woods

As for the terrine, I'm not sure fat content played a big role. I had some pork fat in there, and the terrine also had binders in the form of bread + milk. I'm not convinced a difference in the fat content of the livers alone (chicken vs. wild goose) could cause the texture issues I observed. I say yes to wild livers!

[budrichard]

Squirrels like many other game animals and birds go into an initial shock when first shot and if the first shot is not lethal, they will 'come to' and be active for awhile but they will probably will eventually succumb to bleeding out and death but some may survive.
Bears can take hours to bleed out if not an initial fatal shot with distressing consequences to the hunter if not prepared.-Dick

[thock]

My SO and I shot a couple of deer on New Year's Day. I got a button buck, and he got a doe. Firsts for both of us. Luckily, we had an excellent teacher to show us how to clean, skin, remove tenderloins and loins, and remove quarters. We've eaten the tenderloins from both deer, already. I cooked them in a cast iron skillet on medium-high heat until the surfaces were a nice caramel brown, and then sliced. They ended up about medium rare to rare. A little salt, and mmmmmmmmmmmmm. No pictures, unfortunately.

The rest of the meat is in two coolers, on ice, until I can finish processing and vac packing the steaks and roasts, and gathering up all the trim to grind. Our teacher told us to get as much of the fat off as possible, as it doesn't taste good, and can go rancid quickly in the freezer. I hadn't heard that.

I'm looking forward to cutting up the rest of the venison and, of course, eating it!

[budrichard]

I have always gutted, then hung, skinned and deboned while hanging from a gambrel rack. This allows one to get the meat away from the bones but does not allow for traditional US cuts where saws are used to cut through bones. Trim all fat, silver skin and sinews before packaging and make no sausage or ground meat. The fat and bones can concentrate the flavor of the browse your deer was eating and may not be pleasant. Not only does this make for easier prep later but takes up less freezer space.
With the advent of CWD in Wisconsin, this has now become the recommended way to process a deer.-Dick

[thock]

Why no sausage or ground meat?

I'm in Kansas, where there is little danger of CWD, especially in the area we hunted.

[budrichard]

"Sausage hides the character of the venison and I prefer to work with that character. Ground meat if prepared yourself can very very good but it is my understanding that for both commercial venison sausage and ground meat, fat is added from some source which I don't want. The other reason is habit, I have never had anyone process my venison. During the processing we trim and then package the trim as stew, if needed we can then grind later.
In terms of CWD, the State will examine your deer for Prions but you have to get the head to a Registration place that takes heads. Your are assigned a tag with number and then about 1-2 months later you can check on the DNR website for the results. So far, no CWD but its coming I bet.-Dick

Edited by budrichard, 07 January 2012 - 05:59 AM.

[thock]

Ah, I see about the ground meat. However, we like sausage, so we'll probably put the trim up in breakfast sausage. I like the idea of making my own, so that I know what goes into it. I don't buy pre-made breakfast sausage unless I have to.

[Mallet]

This year we managed to put together another round of the game dinner, and I daresay it was the best so far. As our hunting success increase we tend to focus on the "choice" species, so the diversity of animals was not as high.

Charcuterie Plate
Canada goose prosciutto, terrine of canada goose liver and snowshoe hare, hooded merguez


The goose prosciutto was very good, but I miss my bar fridge/curing chamber (I had to get rid of it in the last move). I had to cure this one in the fridge. The merguez was made with hooded merganser. Mergansers are generally reviled by hunters and the butt of several similar-sounding jokes ("how do you cook a merganser? place in pot with a large brick, cook for 12 hours, eat the brick" etc...), but there was nothing objectionable whatsoever about this bird. There may be a few less mergansers around come next fall .

Hearts and Gizzards
Confit hearts and gizzards (many species), glazed turnips, toasted pecans, poached blackcurrants.


This was the first year I've made a concerted effort to keep all hearts and gizzards from the game animals' I've harvested. This dish confirmed that this is a good idea. I made a few converts too!

Perch
Yellow perch with scallop/morel mousse and asparagus


The mousse was fairly intense but complemented the perch rather than overwhelmed. I was supposed to make a mousseline for the asparagus but ran out of gas near the end of prep. It was very good, but I do regret skipping the sauce (the plate looks naked!)

Cod
Atlantic cod with roasted red pepper stew


The only dish with protein not harvested by one of us. I cooked the cod sous-vide in olive oil, I think I should have given it a sear or something, because it was a little bland for my taste. On the other hand, I am very conservative with my fresh cod dishes (I ALWAYS dredge in flour and cook in butter, like we do back home), so I may simply be rebelling to change.

Wild turkey garganelle
Wild turkey, asparagus, oyster mushrooms


A super-simple pasta sauce (combine ingredients with stock, cook to reduce), but it turned out really well. The pasta dough was the craziest recipe I've seen. 1kg flour to 40 egg yolks! It made for a super-stiff dough that was hard to work initially, but once it made it through the roller a few times it turned into a dream. The dough would not stick to anything except itself, but only when we wanted it too. Magic.

Deer
Deer backstrap with coriander/vanilla endives, king oyster mushrooms, balsamic reduction, guinness emulsion.


The sleeper hit. For whatever reason this dish did not take up a lot of my mental attention when cooking the dinner, but it was very good and shows that even the chef can get a surprise! The guinness foam did not hold up for very long.

Dry shot
breadcrumbs, red pepper powder, black olive powder, fried capers, fried oregano, garlic chips


Pretty tasty, but much too salty for me. Methinks I should have used capers in vinegar instead of salt-packed ones.

Goose confit
Canada goose leg confit, yam cake, plum sauce/mustard


I thought this dish was going to be polarizing, because of the yam cake (it's rice-flour based, and also has dried shrimp). It had a little bit of a glutinous texture and tasted a little odd on its own, but it really went well with the confit. Confit goose legs are awesome. Goose legs in general are one of my favourite things.

Cranberry
frozen/chewy cranberry, orange purée


A fun and tasty bite, made possible by Ultratex-3.

Apple
Poached apples, apple génoise, apple sorbet, apple chip, ginger custard, milk jam


Usually I finish a meal like this with a simple sorbet, but this time we went for the grand finale. This dish was probably the most labour-intensive to make, because there were so many components. Totally worth it.

[Peter the eater]

Compelling photos Martin, thanks. I need help with the porcupine in my freezer.

[Mallet]

I was fortunate to have a photographer in attendance! Now, tell me more about this porcupine in your freezer.

[Mallet]

A few days ago we roasted a few birds. It's always cool to have different species side by side, in this case mallard (background) and ring-necked duck (foreground). Ring-necks are not a duck I eat terribly often, I simply don't target them and they are less common in the habitats I frequent.



The ring-neck beat this particular mallard hands-down. It was way fatter, which probably helped, but the fat itself was very good, mild and meaty, not funky at all. This particular bird's crop was chock-full of aquatic invertebrates when harvested, so I was skeptical of it at first. More and more I am finding these tales of inedible fishy or otherwise funky ducks to be greatly exaggerated, although I have not yet eaten common or red-necked merganser.

[sjemac]

Ringnecks have long been one of my favorite ducks to eat. Don't get them too often in my present location however.