Eating the Mystical Snipe
Jan 22nd, 2009 | By Hank | Category: Wild Game | Comments | 13 Comments |
I went on my first-ever snipe hunt recently, and as soon as I had four of the little marsh birds in hand I began plotting an appropriately glorious way of cooking what has been something of a questing beast for me.
I devised what I thought would be such a plan, and Holly and I ate them last weekend. The little snipe did not disappoint. But I did. I still feel somehow off about the whole meal. I wanted it to be perfect, like a first wedding, or a gift. I wanted each course to build upon the last, every accompanying sauce or vegetable on the plate to sing harmoniously with the bird, and each aspect of flavor and texture that snipe had to offer be given a fitting star turn on the plate. In this, I failed.
It was a good meal, a good start to the world of snipe cookery. But it wasn’t perfect. Let me explain.
Start with the simple fact that a snipe is a very small bird. Four snipe will indeed feed two people, but not without lots of help. This I understood. To get the most out of the birds, I started by breaking them down, so I had legs, wings and breasts separated, plus four little carcasses I intended to use for stock. I also had four little hearts the size of the nail on your middle finger, plus four little livers that amounted to about a tablespoon. Such was my raw material.
Stock was easy. I made a standard game stock with mirepoix, fennel, bay leaves and such, but with so little snipe-y matter I only managed about a cup’s worth. What to do with it?
The legs I decided to brine for 12 hours, then dust in cornstarch and fry in olive oil. I dusted them with paprika and served the little legs and wings with a parsley coulis and some Meyer lemon zest. Sounds good, yes? It was good, but the parsley sauce got lost and the lemon zest didn’t do much for it at all. The legs themselves were yummy: Surprisingly meaty, with a bonus — snipe are so small you literally can eat the legs and wings bones and all. All it took was one brave crunch to realize that this was something special about snipe.
The hearts I confited in a little duck fat. The idea was to serve them at the center of a rondele of thinly sliced root veggies: carrots, parsnips and Yukon Gold potatoes. The rounds were then fried or steamed and served simply. To complete, I put a little minced mint down as a bed and set a confited snipe heart on top.
The veggies were delicious, and the heart confit was even better. The confited snipe hearts were a flavor bomb: so intensely meaty, savory, tender yet still al dente, and, well, snipe-y. Tough to explain, but very, very good. Totally worth the effort. The problem? The dish doesn’t work. This is one case where the whole was less than the parts.
The way I will serve confited snipe heart (or possibly duck heart) the next time around will be to skewer it on a toothpick or pin and serve it atop a shot glass of perfect, steaming snipe consomme. It will be a powerful, concentrated essence of this mystical bird, which, to my mind tastes like a combination of a dove and a duck, with a decidedly marshy thing going on that is distinctive, but not unpleasant. I can’t wait!
The one course I really liked was the main: Seared snipe breasts with pureed celery root and a Madeira sauce that dates back to the 1800s. I’m calling it Snipe Gilded Age, and here is the recipe. The celery root puree was light as air and topped with minced celery leaves. The sauce was Madeira wine, butter, snipe stock and a mixture of pureed snipe liver (you knew it had to find its way into the meal somehow…) and heavy cream. Awesome.
As for the snipe breasts themselves, I seared them hard on the skin side to crisp up the skin, then just kissed the meat side for 30 seconds. Topped with salt, black pepper and a touch of celery seed and it was perfect.
The lesson? Stay simple. Be true to the flavors and if they can’t carry you for a whole meal, make them a course. Or two. I tried to get too “cheffy” here and the meal suffered. It wasn’t a disaster, but it taught me that there is indeed such a thing as too much.
I’ve always loved game & wildfowl. My grandmother’s relatives used to send us pheasant and some kind of wild doves when they were in season. Maybe this is why I stay away from animal activists.
Wonderful stuff. Don’t worry about getting too “cheffy”. I figure the first time you cook something new, experiment a bit. The confit heart sounds awesome I have say. Great idea to serve it over a consomme.
I love that you always use the whole bird.
Perhaps, if you’d just done it simply, you’d regreat not having tried to do all the cool stuff you wrote about. Either way, you now have to go out and get more snipe!
Did you consider the whole bird as a salmisserved on toast? Good way to make the most of the stock reduction, and retain all the flavor of the bird. Popular with woodcock.
Murasaki: I hear ya on that. Where did you get the doves? Here or overseas?
Josh and Matt: Yeah, I kinda had to try something “out there,” so I am not beating myself up too much about it. Nothing ventured nothing gained…
Mike S: I did not consider a whole salmis because I just made one with duck last month — it is an excellent use of snipe or woodcock though!
This was in Japan. The farmers, the police and the military (and the local mafia) are about the only people in Japan who have any kind of firearms…and my grandmother’s family were farmers.
Not only did they send us pheasants and doves, but they also sent us vegetables from their farm which was very much appreciated in the city.
Anyway centuries of Buddhism kind of ruined the meat cooking culture in Japan so the local culinary culture is pretty useless as far as cooking any kind of meat goes. I’ll be coming back here if I ever get my hands on any interesting kind of meat.
Hank,
Your account of how the snipe tasted was very similar to my experience eating woodcock. I bagged my first woodcock this past month, and decided I’d eat it ‘naked’ as I due most game I’m cooking for the first time. Pluck, butterfly, salt-pepper- olive oil, sear in pan, finish in oven. Breast meat was like what you described the snipe tasting like, a mix between dove and duck. The legs were quite different. It was a lighter meat (which is opposite of most the fowl I’ve brought home) with a much more delicate flavor. I hope to find some more woodcock before the season ends next weekend and try out your recipes for snipe on them. Thanks!
If you can find a good snipe bog, the hunting can be more
fun than ducks. We had a good year on snipe to offset
the poor year on ducks.
http://oldfatslowland.blogspot.com/2008/12/first-limit.html
Alas, I don’t have your culinary skills, but plucked, marinated in Italian dressing, and grilled – snipe can’t be beat. I’ll have to try the bones and all next time I cook some. I’ve got a bag of
beaks frozen. I hear they can be salted, roasted, and eaten
like pretzels.
ofs
Hey, I plucked my snipe the other day… you said they had underfeathers, not tiny fur coats!
Snipe heart confit? That sounds amazing. (Well, it all sounds amazing, but I always like the “weird bits” best.)
Oldfatslow: Roasted snipe beaks?! Holy crap, you’e one-upped me! If I get any on Saturday I will have to try that.
Josh: Heh. Told ya. All that works make Mr. Snipe taste muuuch better…
Adele: It was amazing. Really. Try it with chicken hearts and I bet it would be similar.
i was gonna mention the snipe beaks but ofs beat me to the punch.
you do amazing things with your birds! thanks for the post.
I think I’d have a tough time pulling the trigger on a snipe. A mallard or widgeon, no, but a snipe? They make such cool mating sounds when they do those parabolic flights at dusk. Very nice dish in any event!