Wild Bites #61: 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 Pheasant thighs with garlic and root vegetables. Here's what's trending on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook: - It's definitely casserole season. My recipe for bobotie, a South African ground venison casserole with zippy touches of chutney and curry, is a great alternative to standard fare. Works with any ground meat.
- Black walnut ice cream is a great holiday
dessert, and if you skipped picking black walnuts this fall, you can buy them in stores now! Hammond is the company, and I've seen them in regular supermarkets.
- Chicken fried duck breasts are an easy, homey way to serve skinless duck breasts. Great with "off" ducks you want to skin, like
bluebills or spoonies.
- Happy to see my mushroom fried rice is doing well. I love this dish, which relies on leftover or pre-cooked rice and, well, whatever mushroom you like!
- Mole chichilo is a great Oaxacan mole sauce that's a bit different from the other versions of mole; darker, more mysterious. Try this with venison or other red meats.
- Duck or goose breasts with a Greek orange-ouzo sauce is a winner all winter. If you use big Canada goose breasts, use my reverse sear method.
- I love this homey recipe for
pheasant thighs with garlic and root vegetables. This is a Sunday supper to serve the ones you love. Works with chicken, too.
Moving up the list: Looks like there are a bunch of people wanting tips and tricks
on cooking the deer they or their loved ones have brought home, because my tutorial on how to cook venison is trending big time! Love these or any of my recipes? Please rate them while you're there so people searching for recipes know they're worth clicking on! Reverse seared elk roast. Works with big deer or other red meat animals. It's the Friday before Christmas -- and Hanukkah and even Ramadan. Time for special meals. If you want to do a wild holiday, here are some ideas for a centerpiece. Below you'll see ideas for sides, then desserts. - Roast haunch of venison is as festive as it gets. You use a whole hind leg here, with the shank cut off. Great with young deer or antelope.
- Roast wild duck is a winner, and, if you have a very fat wild duck, go with my slow roasted duck recipe.
- A Midwestern classic is roast pheasant. You will need a plucked pheasant here, but you pluck your birds, right? Right? ;-) No pheasant? Well, I have recipes for roast grouse and roast partridge, too.
- Reverse seared elk roast is so, so good. You can use any large roast here, from a big deer to caribou, moose or bison.
- If you have a wild hog lying around, a honey glazed, smoked boar ham is a baller way to celebrate Christmas. Works with bear roasts, too.
- Finally, if you're having an intimate, or even a solo Christmas, try something more delicate, like roast
woodcock, roast snipe, or roast quail.
3. Holiday Sides and AppsThis is where the gatherers shine. While there are some fish and game recipes here, there are tons of great wild ideas for the accompaniment to that centerpiece. I love making sweet things with gathered goods, mostly nuts and berries. The holidays are sad without something sweet and special, so give these a try. - Pine nut cookies. This is my take on the Italian classic, made with American pine nuts. Yes, you can use regular pine nuts, but if so I'd recommend the Italian ones. Another good pine nut option is my pine nut ice cream.
- Another great -- and easy -- cookie is my butternut cookie. This one uses butternuts (not the squash), but you can use black walnuts, hickory nuts or yes, regular pecans or walnuts. Ditto for my black walnut snowball cookies.
- Want to get medieval on your wild dessert? Venison mincemeat pies. So, so, so good. Worth the effort. And yes, they qualify as a dessert, despite the meat.
- A great holiday breakfast is a sweet bread. I really like my butternut squash bread, studded with pepitas.
- This one's for New Year's, 'cause it's fawncy: Fruit panna cotta. I like it with blackberries, but you can use whatever berries you have in the freezer.
5. Days of Blood and ButcheryFresh blood on the fur of my buck. I am finally done with several weeks of hunting, killing, skinning, gutting and butchering deer and ducks. Back-to-back-to-back culinary hunts in Oklahoma left me tired, but serene -- despite a nasty cut on my finger and visions of all that gore playing in my head. This is the reality of meat, and I don't shrink from it. I laid
out my thoughts on all this in my latest essay over at To the Bone. It was one of the harder posts I've had to write in a while. I hope you find it useful. Maybe share it with someone who needs to read it. It's almost Solstice, and I am hunkering down, writing and cooking. Want a dark, deep recipe to celebrate? Squid ink risotto is a cool, easy one. But if you want to get all Nordic death metal for the darkest day of the
year, there's only one dish: Snow in Winter. I dare you to make it... I do have one public event in January:
A two-night stint at the Seven Acre Dairy in Wisconsin just outside of Madison, on Jan. 29 and 30. Details TBD, but one night will be a celebration of Alaska fish and seafood with my old captain, Tyson Fick. The next will highlight the wild foods of Wisconsin. Menus are still in progress, but it's going to be awesome!
Stay tuned. As the year ends, I think about how far I've come in 2024. It's been a journey. And it doesn't happen without you. You, your questions, your comments, your notes of support over all these tumultuous months, have lifted me up. I am stronger now, with a sense of direction I lacked in
2023. Let's tackle 2025 together! I feel, deep in my bones, that good things are coming. ~ Hank Comments?Let us know what you think about Wild Bites by using our anonymous comment form - we love to hear from you, and we read
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