Wild Game Recipes

Since the topic has come up a few times in my tenure on LTH (I'm a relative newbie) and since I have a passion for hunting and cooking wild game, I thought I would begin a new thread. Moderators - I searched as best I could, so please feel free to do what you need to do if there is already a dedicated thread!

Anyway, thinking that there are others on the board who hunt and/or who may come into possession of wild game as gifts from friends, I felt it might be helpful to have some recipes available.

This is an "Italian Venison" recipe that is a family favorite. One of the neat things is that it works equally well with elk and venison as the protein as it does with wild duck and goose breast meat as the protein:

1 jar (I think it's 14 ounces) mild pepperoncini (aka salad peppers)
2 -3 cans or bottles of beer (I like to use dark beer, but whatever is handy is fine)
one packet dry Zesty Italian salad dressing (Good Seasons OR store brand - either is OK)
one beef bullion cube
Large crock pot

Cut a whole bottom round venison roast (4-6 pounds) into pieces roughly the size of baseballs and place in crock pot along with the beef bullion cube. I like to season the meat with about 1-2 TBSP kosher salt and several turns of fresh black pepper at this point. Add contents of one dry salad dressing packet onto roast and dump juice from peppers into crock pot (you can dump peppers in too, if you don't mind them getting mushy) over roast and add 2-3 beers. The meat must be covered with liquid or it will dry out. Cook on LOW for 6-8 hours or while at work or overnight. Use a couple forks to shred the meat in the crockpot and allow to steep in the juice for another :30 minutes or so. Use a slotted spoon to put the meat on a hoagie bun, add peppers if you like, or serve peppers on the side, and have a bowl of the juice for dipping the sandwich.

If you think this might be too spicy for you, youmay consider using half of the pepper juice and more beer - but make sure the roast is covered with liquid.

Enjoy!

Davooda

I like to coat tougher cuts of venison (like round steak) in dijon mustard, dredge in a little flour, brown them, then braise with root vegetables in chicken stock and port.

LTH:

September 1 traditionally marks the beginning of the fall/winter hunting season in Illinois as this is the date when the mourning dove season opens. These "gray darters," as they are known in G-rated language, are very swift of wing and can change directions like a butterfly. Shooting a limit (15 per day) using one box (25) shotgun shells is considered an accomplishment. Dove breast filets make excellent appetizers when marinated, wrapped in bacon and grilled. This recipe for a limit of doves is easy and delicious:

One cup ranch dressing (doesn't matter what brand)
30 dove breast filets
30 1/4" thick slices of button mushroom
30 "cups" of yellow onion (cut onions into quarters and peel the quarter "cups" off each other)
30 pieces of fresh jalapeno pepper (stem and seed the pepper, cut into quarters)

Filet the breast meat off the bone - two filets per whole dove breast.
Place breast filets in Zip-Loc bag, pour in Ranch dressing and allow to marinate in refrigerator overnight.
Each breast piece will need 1/2 strip of bacon (I use cheap bacon) so cut bacon accordingly
Stretch out a half-piece of bacon a little on a cutting board, put an onion cup onto the middle of bacon, place a marinated dove breast filet piece on top on onion cup, followed by slice of button mushroom and slice of jalapeno.
Wrap bacon as tightly as possible around the assemblage and run a toothpick through it.
Grill for :03 - :05 per side, allow to rest for a few minutes and serve.

This is a favorite Labor Day weekend treat for the Davooda clan. Hope you enjoy it too!

Davooda

I have some Pheasants that i would like to cook, but have limited experience with this bird/cooking in general. The plan was to simply roast them in the oven with some onions/potatoes/garlic. Does anyone have any quick/easy recipes I should try. I have enough birds to where I will be eating this a couple of nights, so can try a couple diff preparations.

Also, does anyone know what temp and how long I should keep them in the oven? I imagine it depends on bone in or out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

boshow - if these are wild pheasants, then there is very little in the way of internal or external fat to keep the meat moist when roasting.

I would suggest you consider stuffing each bird with a stuffing of your choice, trussing the bird and then "larding" the bird by draping several rashers of good bacon over the breast portions and legs. I've done this before, and set the trussed and larded bird on a bed of root vegetables in the roasting pan, tented with foil for an hour at 400 degrees and then checked the internal temp to see if it's close to 165 degrees. If not, then I remove the foil, reduced the oven temp to 350 and roast for another :15 or so and re-check internal temp.

This method has ensured the stuffing is cooked through, the meat is adequately moist (but it will never be as moist as a well-roasted chicken, in my experience) and the bacon provides wonderful bacon-y flavor in the potatoes, carrots, parsnips in the roasting pan.

Hope this helps!

Davooda

boshow48111 wrote:I have some Pheasants that i would like to cook, but have limited experience with this bird/cooking in general. The plan was to simply roast them in the oven with some onions/potatoes/garlic. Does anyone have any quick/easy recipes I should try. I have enough birds to where I will be eating this a couple of nights, so can try a couple diff preparations.

Also, does anyone know what temp and how long I should keep them in the oven? I imagine it depends on bone in or out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here's what I did with mine, which was a farm-raised bird (scroll down a bit to see the cooking temps)

Thanks for your help. I will give this a try. Hope for the best!

This caught my eye this evening: Several Norwegian chefs cooking fillet of reindeer, venison, red deer, etc., use geitost in their sauces.

I found one recipe, though it would be something to keep an eye out for:

Dyresteg (roast Venison W/goat Cheese Sauce)*

*This is a new link, because the original died. Googled the recipe's name to find it everywhere. 3/28/14

Regards,

LTH:

I made some venison meat loaf this week and actually remembered to write down the ingredients. It turned out really well so I thought I would share for those looking for ways to use their ground venison:

4 lbs ground venison
1 - large yellow onion, finely diced
1 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs (Kroger brand)
1 cup Heinz ketchup
1/4 cup French's Yellow Mustard
1/4 cup Frank's Red Hot sauce
1 Tbsp garlic powder
2 tsp kosher salt
Several turns of fresh ground black pepper
One small can tomato paste (I use Cento)
Six strips of thick sliced bacon

Preheat oven to 350. Mix the ingredients by hand in a large bowl until incorporated well. In a foil-lined 13 x 9 baking pan, form the meat into the loaf shape, "frost" the loaf with one can of tomato paste and arrange bacon slices on top. Bake at 350 for 90 minutes or until bacon edges are just slightly burned.

Allow to set for at least :15 minutes before slicing and serving.

Davooda

The Tasting Notes Of Beaver, Rinella Recipe Included
While the recipe is incidental, pursuit of beaver tail and whether it was really eaten is discussed.

Any book about the old trappers and mountain men from the 1800s will include a passage about their favorite food, beaver tails. Historians just can’t help themselves from throwing this tidbit into any treatment on the subject, probably because it has a little shock value and also works to demonstrate the tenacity, resourcefulness, and hardscrabble appeal of that particular breed of men. And while it’s unclear whether eating beaver tail was pervasive enough back then to support the historical emphasis on beaver tail writing today, one thing is certain: Anyone who reads about old trappers will at some point find himself wondering what, exactly, beaver tail tastes like.

Hi,

Field and Stream's website is really a good source for wild game cookery. I conferred with Davooda and read a few articles on preparing venison ribs. One article suggested an overnight brine in a sugar-salt solution with lots of spices. I borrowed Cook's Illustrated approach to brining pork of a one hour brine, instead. The brine not only provided moisture, it was a final step in cleaning any blood off the ribs.

I was originally contemplating BBQ, which would have been a trick with lean ribs. I read where some people rubbed butter onto their ribs, then sealed them in foil to cook for 3-4 hours. Later these were browned at the very end under a broiler.

My first cook from the roadkill deer, I prepared two meals: ribs cooked with sauerkraut and venison paprikash following Binko's recipe.

To prepare for these cooks, I had cut away any additional fat and removed the silver skin. I cut four pounds of ribs into two- or three-rib portions. The remaining one pound flap or skirt of the ribs was used to make paprikash. This loose meat might have otherwise been ground.

Venison Ribs braised in sauerkraut

Four pounds venison ribs, cut into single pieces*
Half cup mustard (I used Coleman's English mustard)
One quart sauerkraut
One apple sliced
Two large onions, sliced
One apple, peeled and sliced
One bottle beer
Black pepper
Two to Four pounds of small to medium potatoes, peeled.

Brine the ribs for an hour in salt water (half a cup of salt to one gallon water).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a Dutch oven, arrange half of the sauerkraut. Generously rub mustard into each rib, then Lay the ribs on top of the sauerkraut. Arrange onion slices, apple slices and remaining sauerkraut. Grind pepper on top, then pour half a bottle of beer over this.

These ribs will need three to four hours to cook. When you estimate these are almost cooked, add the potatoes and remaining beer.

* If you cut the ribs into one-rib sections, it will reduce the cooking time. As they cooked, the meat pulled away from the ribs. By the time this meal was served, these ribs were deboned.


Tasting notes:

Paprikash made from this rib flap tasted slightly livery, though otherwise acceptable. The slow cooking worked well to tenderize this otherwise tough meat.

It was noted venison ribs are usually thrown away, because hunters don't know how to prepare them. From our experience today, this really is a mistake. Considering their bulk to store, this could be a consideration, too. These were cooked first, simply for lack of room in my freezer.

If I made these ribs in sauerkraut again sometime, I think I may add some juniper berries. There was no gaminess to these ribs, perhaps this was due to careful removal of any tallow.

Regards,