Wild Bites #60: a 5-minute read that makes you smarter about wild food and tells you what's to come on the website, YouTube, or To The Bone.

 ~ Hank

1. What's Hot Now

Polish stuffed cabbage rolls are pure comfort.    

2. Backstrap Bonanza

Venison tenderloin with a red wine sauce. . 

It's tenderloin time. Backstrap bounty is everywhere, as hunting seasons are in full swing and many of you are coming home with deer, elk, and antelope to fill your freezers. Most hunters eat the tenderloin and backstrap straight away -- these are the luxury cuts, after all. 

Both make excellent holiday meals, crowd pleasers that are fairly easy to pull off, and look and taste fantastic. Here are some, ahem, choice cuts for your harvest. 

• This is the one you want to start with: pan-seared venison tenderloin (pictured above) It's how you want to cook tenderloin in almost any context. Sauces come after. 
• Like this one. A Scandinavian blueberry sauce that is only barely sweet. It is outstanding with venison backstrap or tenderloin. 
• Another Nordic sauce I love, and initially used for duck, was this beer sauce, also spiked with tart berries, like lingonberries, cranberries or rowan berries. Be sure to use a dark, malty beer here. 
• Classic French sauce au poivre is made for deer or elk backstrap, as is what is probably my most loved recipe, venison steak Diane. 
• Venison steaks with caramelized onions and mushrooms never fails to impress. Especially good with elk steaks. 
• Finally, British Cumberland sauce is both made for game, and made for the holidays, with its addition of lingonberry or other tart jelly to make a sweet-savory-sour sauce. 

3. British Food Doesn't Suck

Yes, British food has a reputation. And not a good one. But that rep is a relic of post-World War II rationing, when everyone had to make due with less, and the food suffered. No longer. Really good food from Britain is classic farm-to-table: Simple, big flavors, hearty, comforting. 

I try to highlight that on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, and here are some of my favorites:

• Scottish mince and tatties is comfort food if there ever was one. Meat, veg, potatoes. I like to make it with venison, but you can use any ground meat.
• Cottage pie, known in this country mostly as shepherd's pie, can be as nice or as cafeteria-gross as you want to make it. My version uses venison, but beef would be traditional for cottage pie, and lamb for shepherd's pie. 
• Fish pie with leeks is very similar, only, obviously, with fish. My version uses a combination of smoked and fresh fish. It's one of the few places where I like fish and cheese together.
• Venison Scotch Broth is one of the oldest, and best, recipes on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. I've been making this venison soup for more than a decade. 
• On the lighter side, I love a good British parsley sauce. It's perfect for fish and any light meat, from pheasant and grouse to rabbit and chicken. 
• Winter is the season for those little cocktail shrimp, and there's a great English recipe for potted shrimp that's basically confit. Slow cooked in butter, they're great on toast for a light lunch or an appetizer. 

4. Scrubbing 'The Bear' from My Soul

5. Traveling Days

The open road outside Bozeman, Montana. 

~ Hank

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