Wild Bites #74: 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 seasons are opening, so it's time for roast pheasant!   Here's what's trending on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook: - It's upland bird season, so here are my recipes for roast partridge, roast pheasant, and roast grouse. You'll want these when you come home laden with tasty birdies!Â
- Scotch broth, a wonderful soup,
is fantastic with venison. You can use lamb or beef, too. Don't skimp on the barley!Â
- Finally time for wild rice hotdish, that most Minnesotan of dinners. If you are skeptical, read the recipe. It's really
good!Â
- Got a hare? Make German hasenpfeffer! Yes, this should be made with a hare or jackrabbit, but squirrel is a good alternate, and sure, go ahead and use rabbit.Â
- It wouldn't be Wild Bites without meatballs! This time I'm highlighting Norwegian meatballs! Nope, not Swedish, these are different, and... gasp! better. I normally use venison, but any ground meat works.Â
- For those of you still fishing, try my recipe for broiled trout. It's perfect for those larger fish whose fillets you don't want to flip. Garnished well, it's a Sunday centerpiece everyone will love.Â
Moving up the list: Even though I usually served this saffron sauce with fish, it is amazeballs over white meat poultry, too -- even pork loin! Â Â Â Â
 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!  I am making a huge change in the structure of my subscriptions for To the Bone, the Substack I run where I write about the convergance of life
and nature. As of now, if you become a paid, annual subscriber, I will send you a signed copy of one of my latest four cookbooks (pictured above) for free.  I go into details why here, but the short version is this: Offering a book with a subscription shifts the balance from you strictly supporting me to us supporting each other. Mutual aid, personal connection, and community are the path forward. This is a small way I can do my bit.  Everyone is tightening their belts.
Me, too. I want to help as best I can to make it easier to get books into the hands of people who might find them useful.  If you already are a paid subscriber, you can get a free book when you renew. And you can get a free book by offering a gift subscription, too. Thanks in advance for considering it.  It's duck season in most places, or soon will be, so here are some of my top tips for cooking waterfowl -- both ducks and geese. Well, my top tip is to buy my waterfowl cookbook Duck Duck Goose, which is on sale at Amazon right now. (This book was published by Random House, not me, so I can't sell it on my website easily.)  - Start with the classic: How to cook duck breasts. This is the bedrock skill everyone who cooks duck -- wild or farmed -- needs to
know.Â
- For Canada geese, which are large and often old, I recommend this reverse-seared method for goose breasts.Â
- Roast duck is wonderful, however, and I
have two recipes for it. The first, roast wild duck, is for most wild birds, which are fairly skinny. It's a hot and fast method. The second, slow roasted duck, is for very fat wild birds or domestic ducks.Â
- If you shoot a lot of divers, or spoonies, or geese, chances are you'll have lots of skinless breasts. Make duck jerky from them! It's super good.Â
- Finally, I'll leave you with arguably the most classic duck recipe in America: Julia Child's duck a
l'orange. It's wondrous for any skin-on duck, wild or not.Â
  We have a few last-minute openings for our Oklahoma deer school with Coastal Wings December 2-5. You can hunt either bucks or does. Bucks are extra, but I can tell you there are some seriously big deer out there, if you are looking for a
wall hanger.  This school I will be focusing on sausage-making in addition to butchery and game prep. I'll be running my sausage maker non-stop for y'all, and we'll discuss more complex topics like dry curing, hams, etc -- and I'll get you set up for that to do at home if you want to.  The
cost for does (you can get two) is $2225, which includes 3 hunts, room and board -- I cook a nice dinner for you each night -- a signed cookbook, and the class instruction. You'll need to get there (2 hours from either OKC or Dallas), and get your tags, plus tips for the crew if you so desire. Bucks are $5000, largely because in Oklahoma, Larry (the outfitter) gets charged extra by the landowners whose land we're hunting on, so it's not like it's all profit.  Interested? Email me at hank@huntgathercook.com and I can get you set up.  Yep, I did a book dinner with Rick Bayless!! Squeee!!!  Book tour is winding down. But I still have a few events I'd love to see you at before I start hibernating for winter... and working on my next book!   Up first, I'll be in Albuquerque on October 23 at Marble Brewing for a book party with
borderlands beers and food. This will be a joint event with the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, and part of the proceeds will go towards conservation in that state.  After that I'll swing through Texas in November: Dallas on Nov. 6 for another joint event, this time with
Sitka Gear, the Texas Wildlife Assn. and Hurtado's BBQ. Tickets for that are available here. The next day, I'll be in Austin on Nov. 7 for a book signing and cocktail party at Desert Door Sotol. You can get your
ticket for that event here.  Finally, I'll be back in Chaska, Minnesota at the Forest Fair on December 13, where I will be doing a cooking demo and selling signed books. This is a free event, so just show up and get a signed book!  ALSO: I really need reviews on Amazon -- you can leave a review here -- because those reviews can make or break a someone's decision to buy the book. You can leave a review even if you didn't buy the book on Amazon.  And remember my HUNT RAFFLE is still going! Buy a book from my website, enter RAFFLE in the checkout code, get 10% off your order, and be entered to win a free culinary hunt, or a foraging or fishing trip with me in 2026. I'll draw the lucky winner at random on Dec. 14.  Enjoy the fall, everyone! Soak it up, get out hunting, fishing or gathering
mushrooms -- you still have time before the snow flies!  ~ Hank Comments?Let me know what you think about Wild Bites by emailing me at hank@huntgathercook.com. If you have a question, comment, or request, fire
away! Â |
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