INTRODUCTION I’m often asked what animal I’d pursue if forbidden to chase all others. It’s a way people have of asking what my favorite game animal might be. My answer is, always, the grouse—which strikes some as a bit of a cop-out. Grouse, after all, is an entire clan of birds, occupying nearly every habitat in North America—sage grouse in the Great Basin, ptarmigan on the tundra, sooty grouse in the rain-soaked Pacific Northwest, sharpies on the Great Plains. To me, grouse are a microcosm of the spectacular diversity that makes the world of small game and upland birds so endlessly fascinating—diversity of place, diversity of flavor, diversity of animal, diversity of the people who pursue them. And grouse are just one example. There are seven different quail in North America, turkeys and pheasants live in most states, and rabbits and hares, from tiny desert cottontails to giant Arctic hares, are everywhere. Coastal marshes hold rails and snipe. Boggy inland alder thickets are home to the woodcock. The Great Plains are a game-bird hotspot, with Hungarian partridge, sharp-tailed grouse, prairie chickens, and pheasants, depending on where you go. Deserts are home to Gambel’s, scaled, and Mearns’ quail. Our mountains host blue grouse and mountain quail and all kinds of squirrels, and ptarmigan hide on mountain peaks, holed
up above the tree line in quasi-Arctic refugia. No matter where you go in this world, there’s some sort of small game. But you need not travel to the top of the Rockies to experience the world of small game. That’s the beauty of it—odds are there’s some sort of small game in your yard right now. The cute (and tasty) cottontail is a ubiquitous garden invader, the eastern gray squirrel now ranges as far as the West Coast, the turkey is fast becoming a regular part of the suburban scene (as many of us can attest), and doves and pigeons are everywhere (and I’m here to tell you that the common pigeon, also known as the rock dove, is fine table fare). These animals are many a young person’s entrée into the world of hunting. If you can hunt squirrels where they’re truly wild, you can hunt the deer that live among them. If you can sit still enough and quiet enough to coax a turkey close enough to shoot him, you can do the same in the deer blind. I experienced just such an initiation—with a squirrel in a Minnesota woodlot—at the tender age of thirty-two. So when I’m asked about my favorite small game and then pressed by someone in the know for something a bit more specific than “grouse,” I’ll admit to the grouse of my dreams: the ruffed, Bonasa umbellus. Ruffies occupy deciduous forests from Maine to 9
CHAPTER 10
DARK-MEAT GROUSE SHARPTAILS, SPRUCE GROUSE, SAGE GROUSE, PTARMIGAN, AND PRAIRIE CHICKENS
The birds in this chapter are tricky birds to cook. All have dark breast meat, like a dove or a duck, and a few have white-meat legs and wings, which is unusual in the gamebird world. Like ducks, the ideal temperature for the breast and legs are far apart, making roasting them problematic. Doable, but harder than roasting a pheasant. For the most part, it’s best to separate breasts from the rest of the bird. Cook the breasts like a steak, the rest
like brisket—slow and low. If the legs are light, as they are with sage grouse, for example, cook them like pheasant legs and thighs. If the legs are dark, as they are in sharp-tailed grouse, cook them like jackrabbits. The method for cooking skinless pheasant breasts I describe on page 67 (Simple Seared Pheasant or Grouse Breast) is ideal for the breast meat of these birds.
Four species of grouse, plucked and ready to eat. Clockwise from top left: ptarmigan, sharp-tailed grouse, blue grouse, sage grouse. 104
PHEASANT CACCIATORE Cacciatore is shorthand for alla cacciatore, which means “hunter’s style” in Italian. The French call it chasseur, the Spanish cazadores. This dish in its variations is usually done with chicken, which makes me wonder: is this the meal that the failed hunter gets from his wife when he returns empty handed? A meal eaten in sullen reflection of missed shots, sore feet, birds flushed just a little too far away? Probably not. I don’t know the actual history of hunter’s style chicken, but I’m guessing it’s an outgrowth of the seventeenth century and was initially done with pheasants, quail, or partridges. Another possibility is that this is what the housewife (or servant, more likely, given the European hunting tradition), stewed for several hours while the hunters were out chasing pheasants or deer, making this chicken stew a welcome-home meal. Who knows. Five items connect all versions of this dish: a white meat, such as partridge, pheasant, or rabbit; white wine; tomatoes; mushrooms, usually wild; “woodsy” herbs such as sage and rosemary. This dish is so satisfying, as only the combination of tomatoes, wine, mushrooms, and meat can be. Serves 4, and can be doubled | Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 2 hours 2 pheasants, cut into serving pieces ¼ pound pancetta, or 4 strips bacon 4 tablespoons olive oil (or pheasant fat or chicken fat) 1 chopped celery stalk 1 chopped carrot 5 cloves chopped garlic 1 onion, sliced in half-moons K pound cremini or button mushrooms 2 cups white wine 2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary 1 teaspoon crushed juniper berries K ounce package dried wild mushrooms (about a handful) 1 quart crushed tomatoes Salt and pepper to taste 4 tablespoons minced parsley
Add the pheasant pieces to the pan, and brown them well. Take your time, and do it in batches. Remove the pheasant pieces as they brown. Add the carrot, celery, onions, and fresh mushrooms to the pan. Turn the heat to high. Sauté until the onions begin to brown. Add more oil if needed. When the onions begin to brown, add the garlic and cook for another minute, stirring occasionally. Add the herbs, the dried mushrooms, and the white wine, and turn up the heat to maximum. Stir well. Let the wine cook down by half. Add the tomatoes and mix well. Add some salt if needed. Add the bacon and the pheasant pieces, skin side up. Do not submerge the pheasant; just nestle the pieces into the sauce so the skin stays out of the liquid. Cover the pan and place it in the oven. After 1 hour, check to see if the meat is thinking about falling off the bone. It’ll likely take more like 2 hours, but it’s worth checking early. When the meat is as tender as you want, remove the cover from the pan and cook until the skin crisps, about 30 to 45 more minutes. Move the pheasant pieces to a plate. Add the parsley to the pan and mix to combine. To serve, ladle out some of the sauce, top with a pheasant piece, and serve with either polenta or a good crusty bread. I like a dry rosé or a light red like a Sangiovese for this dish.
PHEASANTS, RUFFED GROUSE, AND BLUE GROUSE |
4 bay leaves
Preheat the oven to 350°F. If using pancetta, cut it into little batons about ¼ inch thick. Chop bacon. In a large braising pan or Dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil or fat over medium heat and cook the pancetta or bacon. Remove and reserve.
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MICHIGAN WOODCOCK
As you move, you keep your head on a swivel and your ears pricked up. In that split-second you hear that basso thrum of a grouse’s wings as it flushes, or the crackly peent! of a woodcock, you must raise your shotgun, find the bird, decide if you can shoot, pull the trigger, and be ready to follow through for a second shot, if you need it. Hunting woodcock occupies your entire existence. It is instinct. Trouble lies in a relaxed mind. The only two woodcock I missed but should have killed were pointed by Brian’s dog. I had only to walk up to the dog, who would then flush the bird, and I could shoot it at my leisure from close range. But for whatever reason, the ease of this whole scenario flustered me; it’s the same with those “gimme” shots on ducks that I always miss. Don’t think, Hank, just shoot! I wound up with three birds over an afternoon and morning of hunting, and I could easily have shot a two-day limit of six had I been just a bit better (or luckier). I couldn’t believe how many there were around. “I don’t shoot woodcock unless I’m with someone who likes them,” Brian said. “People up here don’t really like ‘em.” It showed. The grouse, which is
I hate losing birds, and I did not want my first-ever woodcock to be lost. Brian’s pointer wasn’t too interested in finding a dead bird, so we looked around ourselves. Brian himself soon found it, thank God. It felt good to have the bird in hand. Hunting woodcock opens the mind the way steam opens the pores. As you make your way through the thickets—walking is too generous a term—your eyes dart around and your mind races as you try to solve the geometric dilemma of crossing tree limbs and stumps and brambles and fallen logs. You don’t always succeed. On our second morning, I fell into a hole and bashed my knee on a stump. Occupational hazard.
the preferred quarry of Brian and most of the other local hunters, were so elusive that Brian only got one. Driving back from the Northwoods, I thought about how to cook this three-bird bonanza. It didn’t take too much thought. There was no way I’d do anything else but pluck them and roast them in a high oven. But the sauce. That would be an ode to the Mitten State. Shortly after this hunt, I did a book event in Detroit, where I managed to pick up some homemade vinegar and a jar of wild Michigan crabapple jelly. Sweet? Tart? That’s a classic French gastrique. Brillat-Savarin would have approved. I roasted the birds and ate them with my hands, with a nice bottle of 2008 Beaujolais I was shocked to find in Ashley, North Dakota, where I ended up cooking the birds. They were orgasmic. Sweet-soursavory sauce, woodcock fat running down my hands, crispy skin, and rich meat so jammed full of flavor that I just sat there gorged, after eating all three, one after the next. That memorable meal made me feel like myself again. Home was in sight, and life was good.
Dark-Meat Grouse |
PHEASANT, QUAIL, COTTONTAIL | 286
The first time I ever hunted woodcock was in the closing stages of my first book tour, back in 2011. I’d been on the road for two months, and, like any tour, I had some serious stress to deal with. The hunt was at the tail end of that trip, and turned out to be a restorative experience. My friend Brian Brenton had generously offered to show me the Michigan Northwoods, an offer I happily took up. I told him I had never killed a woodcock myself. “We ought to be able to fix that,” Brian said. We drove north past the little town of Luzerne and into the grouse woods. Brian was more interested in ruffed grouse, and as it happens, the two birds share the same sort of woods but inhabit different spots. Woodcock like life a little damper than grouse do. Both birds prefer thick cover. Alders, black ash, birch, aspen. This is their home. As we walked through the woods, Brian’s English pointer coursing around, Brian bent down to look at something. “Take a look at this,” he said. “Put that in your blog.” I looked. Bird shit. “That’s classic woodcock. If you see that, the birds are around.” What did that woodcock eat to make such a shit? Probably earthworms. Timberdoodles love earthworms. They also eat other creepy crawlies like millipedes, beetles, snails, ants, and other assorted larvae. Another fun fact? They take a dump when they fly, so their guts are clean. Well, clean-ish. This is why some people like to roast their woodcock un-gutted. I’m not one of them. Sure enough, Brian’s dropping-fueled hunch was right. I heard a bird flush and say “peeent!” and saw the shape zig-zagging away from me through the saplings. Theoretically, this would be a tough shot, but I’d killed my share of snipe before, and they do the same thing, only faster. So I felt pretty calm. I missed with the first shell, but folded the bird on the second. Success! I rushed to the spot where it fell, but couldn’t see the woodcock. Damn. Same as snipe. They blend in perfectly with the forest floor. I felt that flood of anxiety wash over me.
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TURKEY BUFFALO MAC-N-CHEESE This isn’t the most highfalutin’ dish in the book. In fact, along with Saturday Pheasant (page 98), it might be the most low-brow. Who cares? It’s awesome. I got the idea for it from a cookbook called Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese that my friends Stephanie Stiavetti and Garrett McCord wrote a few years back. I decided to add meat to my version. Fair warning: this is not low fat, and you’ll eat more than you think yourself possible of eating. If you’re wondering about my naming a specific hot sauce, it’s because Frank’s is the hot sauce used in Buffalo, where Buffalo chicken originated. There is no substitute. If you happen to have leftovers, they’ll keep in the fridge for several days. Serves 8 to 10 | Prep Time: 20 minutes, not including buttermilk soak for turkey | Cook Time: 50 minutes FILLING
1 pound turkey breast, cut into bite-sized pieces 2 cups buttermilk 1 pound pasta, elbows or little shells 6 tablespoons butter (divided— 3 tablespoons for the sauté, 3 tablespoons to finish) 1 medium onion, chopped 2 celery stalks, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced ¾ cup Frank’s hot sauce SAUCE
3 tablespoons flour 2½ cups whole milk, at room temperature ½ cup heavy cream, at room temperature 2 teaspoons dry mustard (optional) ¼ cup Frank’s hot sauce 10 ounces shredded cheddar cheese M cup sour cream TOPPING
1 cup bread crumbs 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and add enough salt to make the water quite salty. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Heat 3 tablespoons of butter in a pan over medium-high heat and add the onions and celery. Cook for a minute or two, then add the diced turkey. Cook another 3 to 4 minutes, stirring often, and add the garlic. Cook 1 more minute, then turn off the heat and mix in the Frank’s hot sauce. Boil the pasta until it’s softened but still too al dente to eat; it’ll cook more in the oven. Drain and set aside. Make the sauce. In another pan, heat the remaining butter over medium heat and stir in the flour. Cook, stirring almost constantly, until the mixture turns the color of peanut butter, about 8 to 10 minutes. Mix the cream and milk together and pour it, a little at a time, into the pan, stirring constantly. Stir in the dry mustard, then the shredded cheese, a little at a time, while stirring constantly—add more cheese only when the last bit has incorporated into the sauce. Turn off the heat, and stir in the hot sauce and sour cream. To assemble, grease a 9 by 13-inch baking dish or something similar. Lay down half the pasta, then the filling, then the rest of the pasta, then the sauce. Sprinkle the blue cheese evenly over everything. Mix the breadcrumbs and parsley and sprinkle that over everything. Bake for 40 minutes, then remove from the oven and let it sit 10 minutes before serving.
WILD TURKEYS |
½ to 1 cup crumbled blue cheese
Marinate the turkey breast in the buttermilk overnight, or at least for a few hours. Rinse off the buttermilk when you’re ready to cook.
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