An annual re-post, for our readers with game in their freezers:
A few more Maggie's Farm favorites, but first, remember: always salt and pepper your meat before cooking, never over-cook game, and keep a good supply of gibier sauce in your freezer.
For venison, elk and moose
The filets - tie them up tight, and cook as you do a beef filet mignon
The steaks - marinated overnight in olive oil, garlic, thyme, a little wine, and grilled rare
The stew meat (which is most of it) - Our favorite is to make a Bourguignon, but a Navarin is also excellent. I call these two recipes "savory meats."
Pheasant, duck and goose legs
Our habit, with duck, goose and pheasant, is to cook the breasts and to confit the legs and thighs. When you confit them, the tendons melt and they are a great accompaniment for a salad. A container of confit in the fridge will last for months. Just take 'em out and warm them in the oven and let the duck fat from the confit drip off, and either pick the meat off and toss it with the greens, or just put the warmed leg with thigh on top of the salad. Good idea to mix some warm gibier sauce in with the oil and vinegar dressing.
Pheasant
We like pheasant breast sauteed to pink in the middle, in butter and olive oil, on a bed of red cabbage (braised with bacon, a little vinegar, port), with wild mushrooms and braised and sauteed root vegetables - or mashed potato, on the side. You splash some reduced gibier sauce on top.
Woodcock
We treat the delectable but tiny woodcock with special care. We don't do it like the French (a sauce from all of its guts, and served with a toothpick to eat the brain with). Sautee the tiny breasts for a number of seconds on each side in hot butter and some truffle oil, and place on toast. Squish the livers into the butter and oil to make a sauce with a splash of brandy or something, and pour on top. Amazing first course.
Or, even better: woodcock ravioli. Chop very finely, then sautee shallot, carrot, and a little garlic. Very quickly sautee the woodcock breasts, then cut into small pieces. Mix above together with some truffle oil and spoon into your ravioli pasta or wontons. Serve splashed with gibier sauce with a couple of sauteed porcinis. A nice touch: shave some black truffle over the raviolis on the plate.
Ruffed Grouse
Grouse hunters are a special breed of human - bull-headed and foolish - and the Ruffed Grouse is a special kind of food. Every grouse hunter has his favorite way of preparing this subtle but delicious breast meat, like a dry chicken, but a chicken that has been raised on juniper berries and raspberries and mushrooms and aspen buds and fern fronds. One way we like is to brown the breasts quickly, then wrap in bacon and bake until the middle is pink. Serve on a bed of lentils with chopped shallots and carrots in them, with a splash of gibier sauce on top, root vegetables maybe on the side.
Canada Goose
Pests? Not on your life. They are great food. Marinate those dark meat, steak-like breasts overnight. Some love 'em on the grill, like steak. That's fine, but also good is to sautee them in oil and butter to your degree of done-ness, then serve thinly sliced with a gibier sauce.
Wild Duck
We have more favorite ways of cooking wild duck than I can list here. It's a subject for another day, but I will say three things: in Yankeeland, duck doesn't mean Mallard - it means all sorts of ducks, including the delicious and livery Bluebill. Second: we gave up on cooking the whole bird, stuffed or otherwise. It does not do justice to the bird. We just do happy things with the breasts, and confit the legs and thighs. Third, a piece of orange should never get near a wild duck. Domestic duck, ok, if that's what you like, but not the wild ones - it's criminal.
