All of this discussion of eating the woodcock and its "trail" on toast reminds me of the French writer Guy de Maupassant's "Woodcock Tales" in which the participants in a hunt hosted by a wealthy aristocrat would gather in the evening over dinner that included a plate of woodcock heads, spinning one impaled on a cork, that would point to one of the guests who then had to tell a story to entertain the dinner party. The French like their woodcock...all of it.

Garry, I've read that.

I'll stick to the breasts.





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Awesome!
 

Deans way is great! We've always done them up that way, nice sear in hot butter, yum! We did the legs for the first time last weekend and yes they are very good, but tiny. Flights are coming!

That's one very happy dog!!

It was a good morning! He was was very pleased with the shooting this time around!

I captured a few birds up-country this week, and just prepared a couple of Ruffed Grouse breasts for the pot and wonder where the shot pellets have gone to. I followed the wound channels with my sharp-tipped mini-Sabattier knife and excised the bloody bits of flesh and the embedded fine feathers, but could not find any lead shot.


Will they be found only in the eating; where have they all gone?

Russ - if you can't find the shot pellets even by dissecting the wound channel they have obviously passed clean through.

You may find a pellet in the flesh but unless you're an extremely aggressive masticator, you shouldn't break a tooth on it.

PS..... How does one "capture" a grouse with a shotgun?

I just looked up the definition of "capture" and I see that it actually can be done...

"Capture: To take into one's possession by force..."

So I guess I won't 'kill' my grouse anymore. It seems so violent to do so and 'capture' seems so much more benevolent.... Hmm... maybe beneviolent fits even better, is that a word?

So, from now on I'll be capturing my gamebirds. Can't wait for deer season when I can try to capture a nice buck.





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The natives up here use a similar term for everything they hunt. They "catch" caribou or moose or whatever.

Oh, in our kinder and gentler world “capture” just doesn’t have the same finality as “kill”. Like the valley girl -speak of saying that someone has “issues” and not “problems”.

Sort of like shoot and release.

Actually, I learned the term, as applied to a day’s take, from an old fishing friend who employed it when we had a couple of big Swordfish on deck. But, I veer off topic.

But, thanks Dean for your analysis, I like the idea that I “button-holed” those Ruffed Grouse with No. 8 shot. I will let you know about that theory after we sit down in a little while to eat what I have cooked up today.

Bon Apetit Russ. I hope they come out perfectly.

How do you cook them? I see your reference "for the pot" and realize that is a very generic term meaning 'for the table' or 'for cooking' but wonder what your method of cooking grouse breasts is.





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Dean:

I can’t claim “a method”, as in the past, were I so lucky to “catch” a Grouse at all, I would have the camp cook take care of the culinary part. Just like an effete sportsman.

In the past everything was consumed at camp.

This year, due to a great guide; great dogs and a whole lotta birds, there were four breasts that came home with me.

So, today I went with the most shot-up breasts for a country-style stew, my notion of starting at the bottom of the learning curve.

So, in the crock pot were placed pieces of wild Grouse breast, some tap water and a couple of splashes of White Sauvignon Blanc (for tenderizing, I hoped); fresh cut up carrots, green beans; peas; mushrooms; onion and celery. All stewed for several hours.

And, NO SPICES. I wanted the subtle flavors of the wild birds and fresh vegetables to be detectable, albeit blended; but not over-powered by such as hot pepper sauce or garlic. Otherwise, doesn’t everything end up tasting the same, no matter how pleasing and reliably familiar?

I thought it came out very well and was pleasantly surprised. Kathy G. liked it, but did add some "Mrs. Dash" seasoning to hers. The tenderizing worked great, too. Plus, no dental problems developed: as you suggested, all of the # 8 shot must have blown through the birds before thy hit they ground.

Being more of what Julia Child referred to as ”an eater” than a chef, I welcome comments from Members on what I might have done better (or done wrong). I plead guilty to caution, laziness and pedestrianism in not plucking and cooking with skin on. I may be missing a lot.

As for the next two breasts, I am thinking of something more in the Escoffier tradition. I am on a strict diet: I eat solely for taste.

Sounds delicious Russ!

Grouse has a wonderful delicate 'nutty' flavor and can be served in several ways that do not drown out its natural flavor.

Bon Apetit!





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It’s a good day when you can shoot at birds in the open and not in that gosh awful thick stuff that you guys hunt grouse and woodcock in!

I'd sure like to hunt the western quail species in the open. It's one of the things on my bucket list. I especially want to take a cock Merrns some day. Gorgeous bird. But I love the thick coverts in autumn in the east. I am invigorated and enchanted by the smell and everything about New England grouse and woodcock hunting. It's in my blood.


Dean.....I cooked up some woodcock last night following your instructions. Well, almost. I plucked the breasts and then popped them out. I just couldn't bring myself to skin them. I would have felt dirty :). You are right Dean. For the first time I actually enjoyed eating woodcock breasts done your way. Where the hell were you 55 years ago!

Tom - Some friends I hunt with said exactly the same thing a few years back when they invited me to a game supper. There was venison, bear roast, roasted mallard (plucked, not skinned), and Grouse and woodcock stew (:eek:) where the birds were plucked and put in a pot with carrots, turnips and potatoes and several seasonings I would never, ever put on my food. The grouse weren't even okay and the woodcock were reduced to garbage before they even came out of the pot.... in a word, disgraceful! They swore that's the way they always cooked them....

I was invited again the following year but I insisted I would cook the birds...
And that's when they asked where the HE77 I had been all these years. :whistle:




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I needed you a long time ago Dean. But better late than never. The breasts were wonderful.

I like bear also. I took five in Saskatchewan before I stopped shooting them. I had all three color phases, black (rare in the West) brown and cinnamon. I used to shoot them in a farmer friend Snuffy's field. He wanted them shot since they do a lot of damage to the oat crops by rolling on them so they can't be combined. The bears show up in his oat fields when they ripen in September. They don't touch canola or other grains but they are a nuisance in the oat fields. He said he'd seen as many as 17 bears at a time in his fields but the most I ever saw was five.

I don't know why bear meat has such a bad reputation. Canada has very strict laws about wasting game. Each bird shot must be promptly included in the bag and leaving big game meat to waste is against the law. Except for bear. You are allowed to just take the skin and leave the rest for the coyotes. That is something I would never do.

I stopped shooting them because I had all three color phases and I really didn't need any more skins. I consider them big racoons and I never took a lot of pleasure in killing them.

I like bear meat if it's a young bear.





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Dean, I’ll give you my perspective on young animals vs. old on the table. The meat of very young animals is tough for some reason. Take veal as an example. It is sliced into cutlets because it is too tough to eat thick. And even the cutlets are tough. It’s the same with all animals, I believe. It is my opinion that a year and a half old buck is no more tender than a five and a half year old deer. If both are aged properly, it makes no difference. Aging properly at a constant temperature is the key. Aging breaks down the muscle and makes meat more tender. Some deer take more aging time than others, without regard to age. I can tell by the smell of the meat when it’s ready to be cut and packaged. I let my venison and other large game age for about a week and then I smell it every day to determine when I should process it. I once left a hindquarter age for two months just to experiment. It was the most tender venison I ever had. The only problem is that the hindquarter had almost two inches of crust that had to be removed. Hence, there was a lot of waste so I never did it again. Hindquarter should not be covered with anything to age properly. A week and a half aged hindquarter will have some crust but it is minimal.

It is important also to skin the animal as quickly as possible to permit rapid cooling. I never take a deer whole out of the woods anymore. I treat it like I treat a moose. I skin it by cutting a slit on top of the backbone and then skin down the sides, remove the backstraps and then skin out the hindquarters and take them out in two pieces by breaking the hindquarter joints. It takes me about 20 minutes to process a deer in the woods. I had a friend time me once. He said I looked like the guy on the Ginsu knife commercial.

Bears take more time to process in the woods since you have to skin to the feet and then break the bone so the feet stay with the skin. But aging of all game and quick cooling are the keys, in my opinion. I’ve never had a bear, moose or deer that was tough, regardless of the age.

Well Tom, that has not been my experience...

I've had older bear that was aged properly and at the right temperature and the meat, although tender and tasty, had that stringy consistency of a pot roast... while the meat I have had from younger bears was also tender but wasn't stringy at all.

Deer meat - I'll call it venison - I much prefer from 1 1/2 year old deer but the venison from older deer isn't necessarily tougher but the meat, even though aged the same way as younger venison, has a more 'dense' consistency than that of a younger deer. The age of the animal when it is killed certainly must have an effect on the fibers of the muscle - they have been used longer and harder and that must make a difference - I can usually tell a young deer's venison from that of an older deer.

I love deer liver and certainly prefer it from a 1 1/2 year old deer. Today I won't even consider eating the liver from an older deer because of an experience I had a few years ago...
A friend shot a buck that was determined by a biologist to be 6 1/2 years old and my friend gave me the liver within two hours of having killed the buck.
It was tough on the outside (not dried at all - it had been in a zip-lok bag since the deer was gutted) and mush on the inside. Never again will I even consider the liver from an older deer.

I know, everyone has different experiences and opinions on this topic and the folks that will shoot an animal but won't eat it stems from the fact that the meat/carcass was not handled properly from the moment it was killed.
You can't drive around with your buck in the back of your truck for several days showing it off to all your buddies and expect the meat to be fit for consumption - those are the folks who don't really care for venison 'cause "it tastes too gamey."





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Your experiences have been different than mine Dean and that's fine. I never eat deer liver but I love the heart. One of my bears was a big boar that was probably a bit over 350 lbs. I watched him in the oats for a while as he fed closer. It was a beautiful animal and it looked like his muscles were flexing as he lumbered within sure range of my .270. He was certainly was a muscular and magnificent bear with a big bulky head and I thought about letting him walk. But I did shoot him although I had regrets afterward. He was one of the few animals that I regretted shooting.


His meat was not stringy and was tender, like all my other bears that are properly aged. I don't know how the bears you ate were handled after shooting. But if the meat bought in the grocery stores was handled the way a lot of folks handle venison, I'm sure it would be sub par also.


Anyway, interesting discussion Dean. Thanks for participating.

The meat of young animals is tough? Seriously? I shot a deer once that once I got up to it seemed the size of a Brittany. Oh well. I put the whole deer, minus head an forelegs in my pack and kept on hunting. The guys in camp laughed at it on the meat hook.... until they tasted it. It was near as tender as properly roasted armadillo. I've had the same experience with bison, caribou and moose. With moose, if their antlers are longer than their ears, they're too big.

Dean I heard years ago from a vet friend that also liked to deer hunt about deer with dense populations having liver fluke issues. That might of been why that deer's liver was so messed up but it sound just like one I shot. When cleaning deer he took out the liver on about a 4 year old doe and showed me the inside, it looked like what you described. It might not have lived another year if liver was messed up like that. . Supposedly no issue with eating a deer with liver flukes but I don't eat wild game innards knowingly...

BTW the French will eat anything. Hence I think they were the ones that coined the phrase "Hunger makes the best sauce", probably were thinking about Woodcock when they came up with that one. Plus spend anytime with Cajuns and Creoles and that saying is alive and true. Learned a long time ago not to ask to many questions. It took me a while to be able to eat crawfish the right way and not look like a wimp to in-laws.

I'll tell you of an experience that embarrasses me. We have an annual big cookout on the private airstrip (Governor Dewey's property) where I hunt, fly and hang out. A person who I lost respect for decided he wanted to have a deer done whole the way pigs are done. He shot a fawn, illegally since it was summer, and put it on the spit. I refused to eat any of it but those who did said it was inedible because it was so tough. The deer went to waste. I have no idea why some young animals are tender, like yours, and others are tough. I think the veal example is a good one. On the whole, I do believe that the theory of young animals being tender while old animals are tough is not consistently true. What I do know for sure is that all my meat, regardless of age, is tender due in no small part to how I handle it and age it.

I have a friend that owns a dairy farm. When his cows get too old to milk, he butchers them. He has given me some meat from the cows which I aged properly. The meat was always tender and flavorful.

Richard, I think the bottom line, from my perspective, is proper handling and aging of the meat at a constant, consistent temperature for an appropriate period of time, depending on the animal. I like 38 degree's but a person I know who raises and processes Angus and Hereford beef in Mt. Airy, Md, for the fine restaurant market, likes 42 degrees. He likes the higher temperature better because the meat ages more quickly and it cost less to bring his meat to market. He also told me that the older beef is more flavorful, something I can’t confirm or deny through my personal experience. All I know for sure is that the dry cows, from my Pawling dairy farmer friend, were some of the best beef I have ever eaten.

I have never killed a young bull moose. All of mine had antlers that extended well beyond the ears. Nor have I killed a calf, which are legal in Saskatchewan. My bulls have all been fine eating. Granted, they are much smaller than Alaskan moose, but I don’t think that size really matters when it comes to the quality of the meat. I have enjoyed this conversation and others opinions. And, by the way, a Piper Super Cub is my favorite airplane to fly. I much prefer it to a Cessna 182 which is also available to me. I love tail draggers. I'll bet we can both agree on that.

I love crayfish (Northerners spelling - and pronunciation I might also add) cooked the way we do it up here... just like shrimp! Yum!





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I like the Piper Cherokee best... probably because I learned to fly on one.

I have a picture of a Piper Cherokee sent to me recently, that had carried Elizabeth Warren on a campaign tour.... but I'll stop right there 'cause we can't get political here. :bigbye:





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I like the Piper Cherokee also, but I have never flown one. It is often used as a training airplane like the Cessna 152. The Cherokee has trycycle landing gear like the Cessnas and I like to fly the tail draggers best. Geez Dean, I have sure taken this thread off topic haven't I? I'll try to be more disiciplined in the future. Let me net it all out....I love woodcock the way you cook them. Thanks for the tip.

Hahaha - Thanks Tom.




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What!! That is first time I have heard of someone from NE eating mudbugs from their area. I know Edgar is getting indoctrinated from daughter. Do you and Edgar now actually run traps and go out in the bogs and catch em?:)

There is saying that if there is ever a nuclear holocaust the only things left will be Catholics and crawfish. Next thing I'll be hearing is you and Edgar having a Mardi Gras parade and trying to get women to show you something for a string of beads.

I used to catch large crayfish and cook them like a lobster and then dipped them in drawn butter. Not much meat but they are tasty. I used to catch them in a freestone stream near the house. I used a piece of screen bent round and open at the top. I'd lift rocks and when I saw a crawfish I would put the screen in back of its tail and poke in front of it with a stick. They would swim backwards into the screen.

I've eaten Cajun style crawfish in the south, but they were done with too many spices. All you tasted was the spices. Same thing with Maryland crab. We New England boys are not strangers to the delights of eating crayfish. But we don't spice them up and we don't make much of a fuss out of eating them.

We don't call them mudbugs because here in the "Nawth" they live in freestone streams, rivers and lakes. We catch them at night when they are out from under the rocks and we put on chest waders, lash a fishing net to a 5-foot pole and jack them with a light in water up to 3 or 4 feet deep. If you know the right spots, a couple of guys can catch about a hundred in an hour or so. Like Tom says, steam them or boil them like you would a lobster ("lobstah" up here) dunk them in melted butter and pop 'em down the hatch. Delicious!





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I hate the term mudbugs. It's a bit too harsh for such a succulent little devil. We called them either crayfish or crawfish where I come from. I've never gone out for them at night. I didn't even know about that. I just got them during the day by lifting rocks. There are a ton of them in my freestone stream. I'll say one thing....Dean sure knows how to cook woodcock and crayfish. Unlike my Maryland friends who take a perfectly good crab and bury it in Old Bay. It's all you taste. New Englanders know better!

Ha, they call em mud bugs for a reason since there really aren't any free stone creeks or bayous in Louisiana. Btw when did you New Englanders start eating them crayfish. Was Thoreau misunderstood wading around for a day in Walden Pond acting like a frog or was he aiming for a mess of crawdads.

I am pretty sure there are lots of different species of crawfish and some maybe taste differently. I have had some crawfish that were properly cleaned and purged and then steamed. They weren't bad but prefer the low country boil Cajun way if done properly and allowed to cool down served with all the fixins.

No offense taken for calling them mudbugs Todd. We New England folks don't eat those southern style crawdads that crawl around in the mud. Ours are taken from pristine lakes and beautiful freestone streams. Maybe the reason you southern boys use all those Cajun spices is to overcome the mud taste of your crawdads. No offense, but animals and crustaceans taken from New England are a tad bit tastier than their counterparts down south. Its a fact Todd. Look it up.

No offense taken nor given. I can honestly say that I have not eaten any crawfish taken from a clear water lake or freestone stream, so I have no basis to even debate or discuss that fine point. Plus I know different species do have different tastes. Yes mud bugs need to be cleaned and purged before putting into boil, if not then your doing the meal a disservice. Maybe you don't have to do that for yours but I find it a necessary step to get most out the taste of your crawfish.

BTw be careful about comparing superiority of one crustacean over another from different parts of the country. For many years when the blue crab population was decimated in Maryland they imported a lot of crabs from Louisiana. They only shipped you fellas the ones they did not want for themselves.

Excuse me Todd. Maryland is not the north. It's the south. A genuine New England crawfish does not need to be purged or cleaned. I'm trying to behave myself and not state that everything is better in New England or the north, but we did beat you guys in the unfortunate war between the north and the south. It's hard not to feel a bit superior.

O Cmon you pulled your Yankee Card like a gun. Congratulations on the victory. Your ancestors were right, economics and morality of slavery sucks. Been burning anymore witches recently?

BTW according to farmers almanac the Canadian Ice shield should be heading your way this winter. Enjoy.

I love winter Todd. I'm anxiously awaiting the Canadian Ice shield. It will mow down a lot of tall timber creating grouse cover some day. Actually, none of my ancestors burned witches but my grandfather (8) on my mothers Farnum family side participated in the so called Salem Witch Trials. Some of the trials were held in Dean's town of Andover, near Salem, where my relatives lived. Ralph Farnum II was a grand juryman for the beginning of the trials but he died before giving service. His son, Ralph Farnum III, testified against Martha Carrier who was hung. He also testified against Hopestill Tylers wife but she was acquitted. I have a record of his testimony from those trials.

Bottom line is don't mess with Yankees.