DECATUR - Wise County Messenger

12 ALL AROUND WISE, Decatur, Texas, Thursday, December 18, 2008
WISE OUTDOORS
How to cook your goose
By LUKE CLAYTON
Hunting season has been
under way for more than
three months now, and
hances are a good many
f you have a freezer well
tocked with everything
rom dove breasts to venison
teaks.
Game meat is far more
utritious than domestic
but it does require different
cooking techniques. Take
venison, for example. Venison
is very lean and what fat
there is in the meat should
be removed; it’s the fat that
sometimes contributes to
the ‘gamey’ taste that some
folks complain about.
I am often asked questions
such as “are wild hogs good
to eat” or “doesn’t venison
have that ‘gamey’ taste”
I’ve found it impossible to
answer these questions
with a blanket statement. I
often reply with something
like this: “If you were going
to a hog farm to purchase
your pork chops, would you
choose the oldest boar Likewise,
you wouldn’t choose an
older bull for your T-Bone
steaks! Younger game animals
in good condition obviously
make better table
fare than older ones. This is
not to say that venison from
older bucks, if prepared
properly, is not good eating.
I always use the center ham
cuts, tenderloins and backstraps
for steaks and grind
the rest for sausage or, add
beef fat to it and make venison
burgers.
Because of its “dry” nature,
larger cuts of venison
must always be cooked with
moisture. I’ve slow-cooked
many venison hams with the
end result a flavorful, tasty
piece of meat. Slow-cooking
at a low temperature is the
key to preparing roasts from
game animals. I usually season
the roast well with my
favorite dry seasonings and
a couple of bay leaves, and
using a sharp knife, make
incisions into the roast and
insert pieces of bacon, slivers
of garlic and onion or jalapeno
pepper. Then, covered
with slices of fatty bacon
and a little butter on top, I
place the roast in a covered
cast iron kettle and bake
slowly for about 10 hours at
200 degrees. The meat falls
off the bone and is well received
at the dinner table
when served with carrots,
potatoes and onions (which I
add to the roast a couple of
hours before serving).
Making barbecue from
these larger cuts is another
great way to please the
crowd at hunting camp or
home. I do a lot of my cooking
on a Smokin’ Tex (www.
smokintex.com) electric
smoker, and I’ve found it
to be a very easy, carefree
method of tenderizing larger,
tougher cuts of meat. I
simply place the roast in a
double layer of heavy duty
foil, add barbecue sauce
and allow to smoke, uncovered
a couple of hours, using
hickory, plum, peach or pecan
wood. Then, wrapped in
the foil, the roast is allowed
to smoke at 200 degrees for
up to 12 hours or so, or overnight.
This method makes
some of the best tasting,
most tender barbecue imaginable.
I often smoke cuts
of wild hog, which have flavorful
fat, with venison and
blend the two for chopped
barbecue.
Chicken fried venison
steak is better tasting than
the best beef round steak,
to my way of thinking. I use
a tenderizing mallet and
pound the steaks, adding dry
seasonings during the process.
Then, I cover the steaks
with milk and refrigerate
several hours before frying.
Dipped in an egg batter and
dusted with flour, the steaks
need only three or four minutes
on each side in hot oil.
Drain the steaks, chop and
sauté an onion in a little of
the remaining oil and pour
a big can of mushroom soup
(with a little water) and you
have smothered steak! Put
a lid on the cast iron skillet
and bake or cook on the
stove top over low heat for
an hour or so to tenderize;
serve with hot rice and hot
dinner rolls.
Preparing and cooking waterfowl
requires a bit different
technique, but if all the
duck dinners you have been
served in the past tasted
like liver, chances are pretty
good the cook didn’t have a
clue of how to prepare and
cook ducks and geese. Lanell
Holland, my wife’s cousin, is
married to the legendary waterfowl
guide Jack Holland.
Years ago, she instructed me
in the proper way to prepare
duck and goose breasts. “It’s
the blood in the meat of waterfowl
that can give it the
strong, liver flavor. Remove
the breast halves and butterfly
them. Then place in
cold water and, using your
hands, squeeze the meat.
This greatly aids in removing
the blood in the meat,”
she instructed. John Bryan,
another friend that guides
for ducks on the Brazos
River, takes the process a
step farther and uses a tenderizer
mallet to tenderize
the breast halves, then he
places them in a pan of cold
water. Waterfowl breasts,
prepared thus, are excellent
when wrapped in fatty
bacon and grilled or, believe
it or not, chicken fried just
like venison steaks. Served
with hot biscuits and cream
gravy, Bryan proved to me
it’s tough to distinguish the
flavor of duck breasts from
chicken fried venison!
Quail and dove can be
prepared and fried just like
chicken. My friend and fellow
outdoors writer Bob
Hood came upon a method
for preparing quail that is
the best I’ve found. He places
a couple of rows of Ritz
crackers in a plastic bag
and crushes them into a fine
meal. Next, in a Dutch Oven
he melts a stick of butter,
then coats the quail pieces
(or chicken wings) in butter,
then covers them with
the Ritz meal. Cooked for
about 1 hour, the quail are a
golden brown. The Ritz meal
batter is crunchy and adds
a great deal of flavor to the
game birds.
If you’re new to cooking
game and game birds, hopefully
these tips will serve as a
good place for you to expand
your culinary skills. Making
great tasting meals from
game animals and birds is
really no great feat, but it
does require a bit of common
sense and adherence to a few
basic rules. In no time, I ex-
pect you will develop your
own list of favorites!
Outdoor tip of the
week
Now is prime time for drift
fishing for blue catfish, and
chances are very good you
live close to a lake or river
that provides good wintertime
fishing. The biggest
blues are landed each year
during the dead of winter.
Savvy drift fishermen employ
a drift rig developed at
Santee Cooper Reservoir. To
tie this rig, begin with a basic
Carolina rig with a 4-foot
leader. The big difference
between the Santee Rig and
the Carolina Rig is a small
floater positioned about 6-
INCONTINENCE MORE
PREVALENT THAN THOUGHT
inches up from the hook/
bait. This float keeps the
bait up off bottom during the
drift, making it much easier
for the catfish to grab as it
drifts by. It also greatly reduces
hang-ups. Fresh shad
is a favored bait of drift fishermen,
but fillets from rough
fish such as carp or buffalofish
also make good baits for
big blues. If wind speed is
much above 12 knots, use a
drift sock or a couple of plastic
5-gallon buckets on the
windward side of your boat
to slow your drift.
■
Listen to Outdoors with
Luke Clayton at www.catfishradio.com.
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