Category Archives: recipes

goose hunting, hunting, recipes, waterfowl hunting

Easy Grilled Goose Breasts

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Some people in the hunting world like to dump on Canada Goose meat.  Call it contempt for the commonplace, or maybe they’ve just had poorly-prepared meals, but I am a staunch apologist, nay a champion, for the bird as table fare.  I love Canada Goose meat, and I’m not too ashamed to admit it anymore.  Properly-cooked Canada Goose (and I can’t overstate that term enough) is great.  Improperly-cooked Canada Goose is a crime.

Early-season geese that are pin-feathered or that lack a good layer of fat are ideal for butchering into “breast steaks”.

When it is done correctly and simply (spoiler alert: it isn’t that hard) it eats like a good cut of beef, and our favourite way to cook goose breasts is to treat them just like a steak and do them on a good, hot grill.

Of note is that the heat and times I mentioned below work for my grill on room-temperature goose breasts of average size.  Over years of doing this I know that these temperatures and times will give me rare to medium-rare meat, which is how I like it. If you’ve shot a huge goose, you may want things to be on the grill a bit longer, if you’ve got a bunch of smaller juvies, lessers, or cacklers, then shorten up the time.

IT IS COMPLETELY OKAY TO EAT GOOSE BREASTS MEDIUM-RARE.

I cannot stress this enough; if you cook a goose breast to anything past MEDIUM (i.e. no longer warm and still a little pink, but brown-grey throughout) you are probably not going to enjoy the experience as things get chewy and grainy and dry. I am of the belief that medium-well and well-done goose breasts have contributed to more people labelling Canada Geese as ‘trash’ than anything else.

When I make this, I treat it like a nice steak. With red wine, asparagus, and a salad as a dinner, or served cold on toast with tomatoes and a fried egg the next morning, grilled Canada Goose should be in your recipe book.

Ingredients

  • 2 (roughly 1.5lbs total) skinless goose breasts
  • ½ cup olive oil
  • ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
  • ¼ cup soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
  • 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tbsp Tabasco sauce
  • 1 tbsp dried basil
  • 1 tbsp onion powder
  • 1 tbsp crushed garlic

Cooking Steps

  • Whisk all ingredients together and pour over the goose breasts. These measurements make enough to ‘cover’ two breasts in an 11 x 7 x 1.5 inch glass casserole dish. Scale these measurements up or down depending on how much goose you are grilling.
  • Let the breasts soak for anywhere from 6 to 24 hours.
  • Heat your grill to a high temperature (mine was holding between 550 and 600 degrees Fahrenheit throughout cooking).
  • Remove the breasts and let most of the marinade drain off, but do not pat them dry.
  • Place the goose breasts on the grill and close the lid. After 3 ½ minutes, give the breasts a quarter turn, but do not turn them over*.  After 3 ½ more minutes, turn the breasts over. After 3 minutes give them another quarter turn.  After three more minutes, remove them to a plate or a rack.
  • Let the goose rest uncovered for 5-10 minutes. Slice the meat into strips across the grain and serve warm as you would a steak.

*I like to do this because it makes nice cross-hatch grill marks.  If you do not care for this, then do not make the quarter turns and just do 7 minutes on one side, then flip the breasts and do 6 minutes on the other. If you are unsure of how “done” they are there’s no shame in giving them a quick slice and deciding if they need more time to reach your desired level of cooking.

goose hunting, hunting, recipes, waterfowl hunting

Spicy & Crispy Goose Hearts

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Early season goose hunting can be a struggle.  Stale, local birds, a still-limited number of suitable fields for hunting, and heavy pressure from other hunters that, like you, have been chomping at the bit to get started shooting geese again.

This past weekend was one of the starkest examples of this that our group has had; just two geese fell over the course of a series of weekend hunts. High winds and tough field conditions had us flagging and calling to several groups, and some even looked like they’d commit, but at the end of it all they often just moved on to other areas.

So, with just two birds to work with, I took as much as I could off them.  I went slow and methodical in the butchering, getting every last speck of breast meat for grilling or pastrami, the full tenders for a little pan-fried afternoon snack, the legs and thighs for a slow-cooked braise, and in a new adventure I pulled out two plump little goose hearts and after I trimmed the arterial scraps from the top of them, I found myself with two delectable looking morsels.  One had a single pellet hole in it; proof of what brought that bird down from the sky.

The “before” picture.

If there had been more geese (and thus more hearts) I would have thought of something more elaborate, but for having just the pair of them I decided to make a quick little fry-up. The technique is simple enough and when I pulled the two hearts from the frying oil, I could tell I was going to like them.  Speculatively I cut open the first heart, the panko-crust crackling like a potato chip, and I was not disappointed.  It was cooked perfectly and after one taste I was addicted.  I think I ate the second heart in one big bite. These are an absolute “must make again”.

Sure to be a hit with those who like deer, moose, elk, lamb, or beef heart, these go well with the cold beer of your choice.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of 1% milk
  • 3 tbsp all purpose flour
  • 1 ½ tbsp cayenne pepper
  • 1 cup of Japanese style (panko) breadcrumbs
  • ½ tsp kosher salt
  • Peanut or vegetable oil (enough to fill a saucepan or fryer two inches deep)
  • 6 Canada Goose hearts
  • 1 large egg

Cooking Steps

  • An hour before cooking place the goose hearts in a bowl with the milk. Let soak for 30-45 minutes.
  • Remove hearts from the milk, rinse and then pat dry or place on a wire rack to air dry.
  • While the hearts are drying, heat the oil to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Mix the cayenne and flour in a small bowl.
  • Beat then egg in a separate bowl.
  • Add the panko to a third bowl. I added more cayenne to the panko, but that’s strictly optional and more an indication of my level of mental illness than anything else.
  • Roll the goose hearts in the flour and cayenne mixture, then dip them in the egg mixture, before tossing them and coating thoroughly with the panko crumbs. Set aside for a few minutes to let the breading dry.
  • Add the hearts to the hot oil, ensuring not to crowd too many in or the oil temperature will drop.
  • Fry for 6 minutes total, turning the hearts to ensure even cooking.
  • Remove and set on a plate with a paper towel to cool. Season with the kosher salt while still hot.
  • After 2-3 minutes they should be cool enough to eat.
Crunchy, spicy goodness.

I like the crispiness of panko breading, but I’d bet you a shiny dollar that if you dumped a mess of buffalo wing sauce over these they may not be as crunchy, but they’d be just as tasty.

deer hunting, hunting, recipes, wild game

Comfort Food: Deerburger Bowls

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In what promises to be a neverending winter I’ve been working my way through the 2017 deer season’s venison supply (although as I write this, a cold March rain riding on the back of a blustery late-winter wind is decimating the snowpack at the end of my driveway).  This past November, the two camps I hunt out of managed to harvest four deer, and since we’ve got to split that meat between up to a dozen hunters, I’ve been stretching what I’ve got as far as possible.

To that end, I’ve started making one-bowl dishes that incorporate venison at their base before I add in other ingredients that I really enjoy.  One of my go-to meals is what I call a Deerburger Bowl; it starts with seared ground venison and then I add in whatever I like and have at hand.  This dish is rich, moderately spicy, and like most preparations of wild game, if treated simply and cooked properly it is ridiculously delicious and ultra-healthy.  The recipe below packs nearly 70grams of protein into a single bowl, is low in fat, and has all the ‘goodies’ inherent in quickly searing raw asparagus and leaving it crunchy. I imagine this would be all the better to the enterprising forager that procures some wild asparagus this spring uses it in making this dish. I’ve also used other seafood and greens, but this is my standard.

Deerburger Bowls

(Makes 8-10 servings)

  • 3lbs of ground venison
  • 2lbs of 26/30 size (extra-large) shrimp, de-veined and peeled
  • 40 stalks of asparagus, trimmed and chopped into 1 ½ inch pieces
  • 1/8 cup of water
  • 5tbsp olive oil
  • 3tbsp sambal hot sauce
  • Salt & pepper to taste.

Using a deep, heavy pan or a deep wok over medium-high heat, heat 3tbsp of olive oil.  Add the ground venison, salt and pepper to taste, and increase the heat to high.  Brown the venison quickly and thoroughly before removing it to a separate bowl using a slotted spoon.

Add 1tbsp of olive oil to the same pan and add the shrimp.  Cook over high heat until they are firm.  Remove to the same bowl as the venison and mix the two together.

Add the remaining olive oil to the same pan and add the chopped asparagus.  Sear the asparagus and toss to ensure even browning; it should be hot but still crunchy because no one in their right mind likes stringy, overcooked asparagus.  Once the asparagus is seared, add the water and mix in the hot sauce, browned venison, and shrimp. I stir this over high heat for a minute or two more to coat everything with the hot sauce before I pour the whole thing into bowls for storage for the week.

These bowls are great underneath a couple of sunny-side up eggs for a quick hearty breakfast, or heat one up for lunch or dinner (or both!) and serve it over wild rice before pouring yourself a cold beer.

You’ve earned it.

recipes, reflections, turkey and turkey hunting, wild game

Fear, Self-Loathing, and Internet Trolls

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This week I decided to do something miles away from my comfort zone.

Explaining something…

Since 2011, this little webpage has acted as an insulating buffer between myself and the reader.  My ‘voice’ was expressed through typeface and I had the benefit of time, editing, and occasional proofreading to refine my ethic and message dozens of times before I put it out there. I’ve had all the control so that on the (rare) occasions that hateful or crude comments show up that revile me for being a hunter, or poke holes in my logic, or (to directly quote one aggrieved reader) deride me as just some “city boy pretending to hunt”, I simply delete the offending statements and move on my merry way. Unsolicited hate mail gone forever, just like that.

But this week, I lacked that luxury.  This week I did a television shoot, and went from ‘single voice among thousands of outdoors websites’ to ‘single voice talking straight into a television camera’. Those experiences are fundamentally different, and the public perception of those things are equally divergent.

For context, I was approached by Sang Kim, who is an author, chef, and television personality to talk about hunting and guns, as well as to cook my favourite wild game dish, which in this case was a wild turkey leg confit. I of course jumped at the opportunity because those are things I love talking about and things I love to do. But it did lead me to an existential crisis, and when I’m in an existential crisis, I write about it so here we are.

You see, there’s a chance I might be cast in the all-too-bright light of “expertise” which has always made me uneasy and self-conscious.  For whatever reason, even though televised media (even internet-based televised media) is ubiquitous, there still exists a sense that those with a mass-media platform have expertise. So, by way of full disclosure, here’s what I’m expert at.

  • I’m an expert at sharing my opinions.
  • I’m an expert at shoving delicious wild game into my face.
  • I’m an expert at trying new things with little forethought for how the external reaction is going to be.

And that’s where my head was during the shoot.  I offered opinions and statements on what I thought to be pertinent or what I believed to be valid on a variety of topics, some of which I was prepared for and some that I was not.  But nothing is off limits to me, so I gave it the old college try.  The demographic is non-conventional from a hunting perspective, the platform is non-conventional to typical media, and if anything, I’m not the typical ‘hunter’ stereotype (I think).

Some of what I said and believe will be unpopular with non-hunters and non-gun owners.  Some of it will be unpopular with hunters and gun owners. But all of it sits well with me which is what matters I guess.

Also, there’s that lingering and perverse fear that I have where people are going to ridicule and hate and mock me in a very public forum.  All the tough guy attitude, spunk, and bravado available to me still aren’t going to stop trolls and keyboard-social justice warriors, and other “better” hunters who might feel more representative of the tradition from trying to make me their whipping boy on YouTube.  But I guess that’s their prerogative and not mine.

Of course I’m not looking to be a martyr for the cause (although I would be if I had to I suppose) or for personal sympathy, or kudos, or bland affirmations.  Nor is this a pre-emptive disclaimer begging for kindness, forgiveness, or understanding because I waived rights to those things when I opted into this opportunity.  I’m mostly just going through prose therapy or literary diarrhea or whatever this actually is.  But at the heart of the matter, I’m writing this to clarify my hopes.

I’m hoping that I wasn’t too far off the mark in my opinions, hoping that I was representative of my personal ethics, and hopeful that my turkey calling was at least passable; the birds seem to like it anyhow.  I’ve yet to see the finished, edited product yet but the hope (there’s that word again) is that the passion and the simple message I have does not get lost in translation or flogged to death in a comments section.

Having a chuckle.

In all, the only thing I want is to represent hunting and the outdoors and my passion for both of them respectfully, humbly, and clearly. I also liked that I got to get myself a tidy new branded t-shirt with shiny dome fasteners out of the deal.

There were things that may end up on the cutting room floor.  There were things I desperately wanted to share that just never came up. Thankfully, I can honestly say that I never had a moment in the whole shoot (which was amazing by the way and an experience absolutely worth any stress or backlash that may come out of it) where my internal monologue went “Uh-oh, don’t answer that” or “This sounds dumb” or “This whole premise is ridiculous and going to negatively represent hunting and hunters”.

Still, it’s over now and nothing can be done about it anyhow, even if I had contributed something incredibly stupid to the record.  I knew the ‘risks’ about taking it on and did it gladly, because declining this would have led to regret and I like to live with a “what-the-hell” mentality. At best I like to think my opinions and contributions are benign and conciliatory.

Confit Wild Turkey Leg with Morels and Grilled Scallions

For Lucas Hunter, Chef Sang Kim, my family, TagTV and all those that supported this, I quite literally cannot thank you enough.  This was a once-in-a-lifetime thing and I’m truly glad I did it.  For those that want to actually see it, we’ll post the details once they come available.