Wild Bites #15: a xx-minute read that makes you smarter about wild food and tells you what's to come on our website, podcast, YouTube, or To The Bone.

 -Hank and Holly (Team Hunter Angler Gardener Cook)

1. What's Hot Now

Venison summer sausage

2. Smart Take: Roasting Birds

Many of us roast birds only on the holidays, and it can be stressful. You don't want to screw up Christmas dinner, right? Here are a few tips and tricks for a better bird. 

1. The Prime Directive: You can always cook something more. You cannot uncook something. So when in doubt, pull the bird sooner than you might think.
2. Only roast plucked birds. The skin and fat of a nicely roasted bird are what make holidays special. #giveapluck 
3. Brine white meat birds. Use a simple brine ratio of 1/4 cup kosher salt to 1 quart water to soak your pheasants, grouse, quail or even a turkey overnight. This process helps the meat retain moisture when roasted. 
4. Overnight rest. All birds you want to roast whole benefit from sitting in the fridge uncovered overnight, especially after brining. This gets you closer toward the crispy skin we all love. 
5. Start at room temperature. Easiest way to screw up a whole roasted bird is to start cooking it when the center is icy cold. Let the birds sit at room temp for an hour before roasting. 
6. 🦆 Goose and duck hack: On very large ducks (domestic) and geese, slice off the breast when it hits an internal temperature of about 135F. Then pop the rest of the bird back in the oven to finish. When it's time to serve, sear just the skin on the breasts before slicing.

3. Confit - a Simple and Tasty Way to Cook and Preserve Legs and Wings

Confit - pronounced con-fee - sounds fancy, but don't let the French name fool you: It's a simple way to cook and preserve duck, goose or pheasant legs and wings by salting them down and cooking them in their own fat (or another type of fat, if you're not blessed with corpulent birds).

You can get fancy with the seasonings, but Hank advises against it. "The more you dress up your confit, the less versatile it will be in the kitchen," he writes. "Confit is a beginning, not an end."

And once made, confit keeps for weeks in the fridge. Handy on a worknight. 

4. The Gift that Won't Be Late (and Won't Disappoint)

Ordering holiday gifts that will be delivered on time just got a lot dicier with this big storm tracking across the country, but we have an option that can be delivered precisely when you want to the hunters on your gift list: OutdoorClass.

OutdoorClass is a video-course platform for phone or desktop where hunters can learn from the best. Hank has a killer Venison 101 class, but there are also hunting technique courses from experts like Randy Newberg and Remi Warren, as well as another cooking course by wild game chef Jaime Teigen. Course offerings will expand in 2023 to cover new species and culinary skills (Hank will have one on fish and seafood!), and to serve hunters of all levels, from novice to expert.

The app is highly rated (4.8 stars in the App Store and 4.5 on Google Play), and the courses are getting rave reviews.

To give OutdoorClass as a gift - including gift message and any delivery date you choose, please click here. 

5. What We're Up To

Hank just took a quick trip to Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora in Mexico, and came back with lots of recipe ideas, some almost translucent Sonoran flour tortillas, delicious sweet coyotas, gorgeous ironwood and ceramic tchotchkes... and a mild case of Covid - womp womp!

Fortunately he had just made a big batch of stock from the bones of some venison he had dry-aged for 25 days (which, btw, made some epic carne asada tacos), so he's soothing that throat with nothing but the finest.

You can read about his trip in a post called Ground Truthing on To The Bone.

Ribeye and nopales taco from Tacos Leñador in Hermosillo.

While Hank was in Hermosillo, Holly ran a women's trap shoot and pheasant hunt last weekend with her friends at Hastings Island Hunting Preserve and shooting instructor John Staggs. Participants ranged from being on their first hunt ever to having several years of hunting experience. Everyone was safe, everyone had fun, and everyone went home with birds and swag from Benelli.

Women represent a growing percentage of hunters in America, so they are no longer the outlier they once were. But many hunt a little differently from men, sometimes preferring women's-only hunts for the social and bonding opportunity, even if they no longer need the training that's usually offered on those hunts.

And the bird flushes right! The hunter in the blaze vest stood down just after this photo was taken and gave the shot to the hunter in the camo jacket. Note that they're both shooting left-handed - cross-dominance is very common in women!

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