An all game menu

[Wilfrid]

We started discussing this on the blessed Balic bio-thread, and I was encouraged to bring it up at a higher altitude. I plan to cook a game menu for friends in London in December. Here's my current thinking:

First off, either a raviolo or a small empanada (okay, pasty) stuffed with one of the darker game meats - possibly wild duck, maybe grouse if they're still around. I will put some finely diced root vegetables into the mix. Or should I go with a subtle fruit touch - some berries, maybe. If it's the pasty, I thought a sweetish sauce; port with orange maybe? Perhaps a few wild mushrooms scattered around the plate.

Next up a crepinette (okay, burger) made with one of the lighter meats chopped up with a little fat pork and some suitable fresh herbs. Partridge, or rabbit so long as it's a wild rabbit. An easy mustard sauce, maybe with a few cornichons chopped in.

Finally, a salmis or a civet. This really depends on the available critters. Hare would be nice, but is a lot of work. Wild boar. Or maybe a bird, depending what's in the early dishes. This will be a red wine-based dish, will pearl onions and carrots. Maybe some little potatoes thrown in.

So, trying for some contrast there. Will doubtless follow with cheese. I will ask for a volunteer to make dessert, as it's not really my thing (sssh, don't tell Steve Klc). Also, since I am chef, I expect the guests to regale me with fine wines.

Just can't cook that sort of dinner in NYC, ecept maybe with a lot of mail ordering.

Comments welcome. Anyone else cooked an all game dinner? You'll note (of course) that I am trying to avoid a plainly roasted game bird. That can be delicious, but I am thinking the lucky diners will already have eaten that kind of preparation more than once this season.

[Simon Majumdar]

Wilfrid

A splendid idea

I cooked a dinner similar to this a few years ago

I started with a mallard pastilla which went down very well with a spicy Lebanese red ( unfortunately the wine not the resin ) I was particularly proud of this and have made it a few times simce using Duck and goose.

I followed with a small cup of venison broth which I poured over very thin slices of venison so they poached in the broth. I can't remember what we drank with this.

Next up was a Bigos ( Hungarian Hunters Stew ) using wild boar loin and sausage and bolld sausage.

finally we chowed down on roast snipe with bread sauce and game chips and red currant jelly. I think we went the trad claret route for this

It was an odd mix ( I was trying to please a lot of people ) and a lot of food ( even though I went the "small plate" route ) but the reaction was very good.

If you can get hare, a Jugged Hare would be excellent.

hope this helps

S

[Wilfrid]

Simon, if I see a snipe I might go back to the whole roast bird idea. Haven't eaten snipe in several years. I am reluctant to do the hare as I am imposing on a friend's kitchen, and my recollection of dealing with the beast is buckets of blood everywhere and much struggling and cursing on my part. I am trying to come across as Daniel Boulud () rather than Vlad the Impaler.

[Jinmyo]

Wilfrid, as I recall, the worst part of dealing with hare is the stench during the skinning.

[AdamLawrence]

I know it's the coward's option, but couldn't you get the butcher to skin the hare for you?

Can you call wild boar game now that they are virtually all farmed? But then that raises an interesting question - what's the difference between farmed and wild - I mean, pheasants and partridge are all raised and fed by estates, deer are 'farmed' in a sense (and not just the ones kept in fields).

Adam

[Gavin Jones]

I don't believe I've ever cooked an all game menu. Much of the attraction with game is the nature morte aspect of the presentation - one encapsulated by the mythology of the ortolan. To escape this totally with the crepinette, or faggot for anglophones, seems to be a little disappointing - where conventionally the innards are the innards - here the partridge would be rendered very flightless.

The Teal Wellington I recently had (breasts perfectly cooked rare inside a suet/butter pastry casing, legs crisply roasted on the side was a successful attempt to redo a classical dish.

Difficult to get a decent texture/taste contrast with an all game menu - I'm thinking Mark Rothko for the palate here. Is there something with very high contrast one could do with one of the dishes - something very crunchy, or fishy that might work with game?

More questions than answers really.

[Wilfrid]

The trial with the hare, as I recall, was trying to get rid of fairly thick membrane which encases the flesh. It was skinned when I got it. I probably have better knives these days, so maybe it would be easier.

I once prepared a hare over a sink in a bedsit. You'd have thought a bloody murder had been committed in the room by the time I'd finished.

[Liza]

Oh Mighty W,

Wondering if you've cooked domestic rabbit - we've been satisfied with D'Artagnan. During a visit to Chelsea Market this weekend we noticed that Frank's butcher had what appeared to be hare from a small producer. I've talked with one of the main purveyor's at Franks and know that they have relationships with some smaller producers - perhaps a rehearsal dinner before the big one?

[Wilfrid]

Are we talking about the butcher in that big indoor market place in Chelsea? That may be worth following up.

I often cook domestic rabbit, because I don't see a ready alternative. I find them blander in flavor, and much much fattier.

[SobaAddict70]

What, no ortalans?

Shocking, just shocking....heh.

SA

[Wilfrid]

Oh, of course I'll be serving them with pre-dinner drinks as finger food.

[Bux]

First off, either a raviolo or a small empanada (okay, pasty) stuffed with one of the darker game meats - possibly wild duck, maybe grouse if they're still around. I will put some finely diced root vegetables into the mix. Or should I go with a subtle fruit touch - some berries, maybe. If it's the pasty, I thought a sweetish sauce; port with orange maybe? Perhaps a few wild mushrooms scattered around the plate.

I'd probably have mushrooms all over the place, but that's me. As for the fruit here, I think at least one course (aside from dessert) should have fruit in an all game menu. As for fruit or root vegetable, it doesn't have to be either or. I was really impressed with the array of fruits and vegetables Ducasse served with venison in Paris. There was what might best be described as a confusion of fruits and vegetables. The little pears were tart, but the squash or pumkin was very sweet. Each piece was a bit of a surprise. I could see a little dice of carrots, turnips, apples, pears, squashes, even berries, etc. in a little pie or raviolo.

[Wilfrid]

Good idea, Bux. The fruit would bring out the sweetness of the root veg nicely.

[Liza]

Yes, Mighty W, the indoor butcher in Chelsea Market (75 Ninth Avenue). I hereby offer to test it out for you.

[Wilfrid]

I am really aiming at high level palates. Thanks all the same.

[Priscilla]

Isn't it trad, trad in just the way that appeals to me, anyways, to have represented with game a fruity sweet, a bitter, a root, and a starchy something? Currant something, braised endive, roasted parsnips (a bitterish two-fer), and puree of chestnuts, off the top of my head? Regionally appropriate, of course.

Continuing extemporaneously, e.g., here in California, (for instance if my friend's dad's been hunting pheasants or deer or whatever's on offer up in the foothills AND, crucially, some comes my way) it'd be a pomegranate or prickly pear preparation, wilted dandelions, a small button of superbutterenriched dark orange sweet potato along the lines of Paul Prudhomme's prodigious candied so-called yams, I'm thinking with an element of ginger in there this time.

[Wilfrid]

All scrumptious. I tend, rightly or wrongly, not to make meals with a series of side dishes. I don't personally like eating family style. So I tend to concentrate on the protein in the middle of the plate and try to garnish and flavor it appropriately. So the starch, fruit, sweet, bitter thing I would try to do, if anything, over the course of several dishes rather than in one.

I wonder if I should add a course. Maybe some slices of simply seared venison with some interesting green leaf type garnish? Or is that too much meat?

[Priscilla]

Not side dishes. In my imagination these four tastes, obviously symbolizing North South East West Air Water Fire Earth, take yer pick of four-ordered symbol systems, would appear IN EACH COURSE!!! Wouldn't that be wild? Course you'd need a different bitter for EACH COURSE, a different fruity sweet for each, and so on, worldwithoutendamen. Mmmm sounds good.

[Wilfrid]

Good for you, but I'm a minimalist. Meat. Vegetable. Little puddle of sauce. Big white plate.

[Jinmyo]

Wilfrid, I think some some simply seared venison with some greens (rapini?) would be refreshing.

[Priscilla]

Good for you, but I'm a minimalist.  Meat.  Vegetable.  Little puddle of sauce.  Big white plate.

I wouldn't even put the meat + veg on the same plate, depending.

And does there always have to be a little puddle of sauce or can it be conveyed other ways sometimes.

What I am picturing is representative tastes, matched to the course, to create a desired flavor profile.

[Adam Balic]

Comments welcome.  Anyone else cooked an all game dinner?  You'll note (of course) that I am trying to avoid a plainly roasted game bird.  That can be delicious, but I am thinking the lucky diners will already have eaten that kind of preparation more than once this season.

Wilfrid - with all possible respect, the menu sounds a little heavy as it is. Maybe keep the menu, but add an exta dish, such as a salad (with smoked grouse breast/venison, easy to do) to give the palate something to be refrshed by. An Italian vinegar cooked partridge maybe, a terrine (you could make a fancy version) with cornichons. 'Wild' boar pork pie (think of the jokes you can make, re:Modern English Cooking!) with pickled quails eggs served with Samuel Smiths Taddy Porter.

Just a thought or two, in no real order.

[Wilfrid]

A terrine would be great, but I have several reasons for wanting to keep the dishes fairly straightforward - limited time, strange kitchen, not wanting to try kitchen owner's patience, etc. I think my menus are always a little more on the heavy side than the light side - that's fine by me, but I do try to control portions.

[Adam Balic]

I think my menus are always a little more on the heavy side than the light side - that's fine by me, but I do try to control portions.

Your mean it hasn't been diet cream and calvados that you have been eating for the last week?

I understand the not wishing to disrupt your hosts kitchen/life too much. Terrine could be made in advance though. One of those new fangle ones made out of mostly gelatin would be cool. Grouse + Patridge set into a Port flavoured game stock jelly with chestnuts and Jerusalem artichokes and some type of contrasting colour/texture?

Anyway your menu sounds great, but it is fun to toss ideas around.

I have been told that it is possible to get Mistle (sp?)thrushes in the UK (?) No sure if this is legal, but my butcher has told me that they are very popular with the Upper-classes. Those would be good.

[Wilfrid]

I've never come across a thrush, and I don't fancy stuffing a terrine in my suitcase, but keep the ideas coming.