Wild Bites #39: a 4-minute read that makes you smarter about wild food and tells you what's to come on the website, podcast, YouTube, or To The Bone.

 ~ Hank

1. What's Hot Now

Dry-aged bison steak. So good...

2. Ducky Ducks! 

Duck stir fry with scallions.

Duck seasons are open basically everywhere, with splits over, and northern birds filtering south daily. I prefer to pluck my birds, but many do not, so this one's for those folks. And to be sure, I skin most diver ducks, almost all sea ducks and most of my snow geese. So here's a few skinless duck recipes you'll want to try out. 

• Duck jerky is a mainstay for skinless ducks and snow geese. You can make it in many ways, but this one's my favorite. 
• Duck stir fry with scallions. To be honest, any stir fry on the website geared toward red meat, like venison, will work with skinless duck.  
• Barbacoa. Do this with skinless legs. It's especially good with skinless Canada goose legs. Braised, shredded and crisped up a little. This is epic for duck blind burritos. 
• Duck meatballs. Once you grind your skinless duck meat with a little pork fat, you have a versatile ground meat. Meatballs are always a great way to go. 

Side note: All red meat animals work interchangeably, so if you see a venison recipe, for example, and want to use duck, chances are it'll work.

3. My Favorite Venison Recipes

This might be the question I get asked the most: What's my favorite venison recipe? Well, I've developed several hundred recipes for deer, moose, elk, antelope, etc., and even wrote an entire cookbook about it. So how am I to pick my favorites? They're all my children.

But even parents secretly have favorite children. So here goes. These are recipes I dearly love. Some are not popular, some are. All are knockouts. 

• Braised shanks with garlic. This is a play off 40 clove garlic chicken, and it works best with shanks from young animals, like yearlings or spike bucks. Light, elegant, yet easy. 
• Simply seared tenderloin. More of a technique than a recipe, this is how I eat my tenders. And I mean tenders, not backstrap. (It's the recipe pictured above.)
• A rich venison stew with North African flavors. It's easy to make, but just different enough to make you want it all the time. Not your thing? Make my Spanish chilindron. I guarantee you'll like it. 
• Salpicon de venado, a Mexican shredded venison salad. This version is a specialty of Tamaulipas, Mexico, and is a light, healthy way to eat deer meat.
• This super tangy, lightly fermented Swedish sausage called stangkorv, made with venison, pork and barley, is so remarkable you'll find yourself making it all the time. 
• Not to be outdone by the Swedes, these Norwegian meatballs are even better than Swedish meatballs. Gauntlet thrown. 
• Finally, I dearly love the Fifth Quarter, offal, wobbly bits. And maybe my favorite is British venison and kidney pie, which I often make with hearts and kidneys. Trust me on this one: If you make it, you'll believe me. 

4. Hunt or Harvest?

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5. Starting My Engines 

Setting up a photo shoot solo. 

Slowly, haltingly, I am getting back into a groove. I have venison in the freezer, I'm writing recipes again, and I am starting to photograph them for Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. This, by the way, is low-level scary because I am obviously not as good as Holly, whose shoes I may never fill. Any tips are appreciated. 

I find myself coming up against something I haven't experienced in a long time: Cooking for one. I wrote about it over at To the Bone. No lie, it's challenging for a guy like me, who loves to cook for people in general and loved ones in particular, and who has a zillion ideas whirring in my head at all times. I need people to help eat my leftovers...

I am also missing the Mexicanity of Sacramento, where that culture is woven into the fabric of the city. It exits here in the Twin Cities, especially in places like West St. Paul, but I need to start seeking it out. Again, any tips appreciated. 

That's about it from here. Starting to plug away at the things you follow me for. Finally. Hey, normalcy. What a concept!

~ Hank

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