Ducks and Geese
Duck a L’Orange
Julia Child's classic recipe for duck a l'orange, made with a very fat mallard. This is the recipe that made this dish so famous 50 years ago.
Ducks and Geese
Julia Child's classic recipe for duck a l'orange, made with a very fat mallard. This is the recipe that made this dish so famous 50 years ago.
French
Cabbage leaves stuffed with wild duck, bread and herbs, then simmered in a light tomato sauce.
Mushrooms
A recipe for mushroom bisque using wild mushrooms. This is basically real, homemade cream of mushroom soup. You can use any sort of mushroom you like.
Wild Game
This is about as classic French as you get. Salmis (sal-mee) of snipe: Salmis is where you roast a bird, make a quick sauce from the bones, and serve it with mushrooms and maybe some toast. This is a fantastic snipe recipe.
Recipe
Verjus, or verjuice, is the juice of unripe grapes - wild or cultivated. It is a classic French alternative to vinegar, and it is pretty easy to make. Here's how.
Pheasant, Grouse, Quail
If you've never braised pheasant thighs, you're missing out. Unlike the drumsticks, which can be fiddly, the thighs on pheasants (and wild turkeys) are sublime when slow cooked. This recipe is based on a French one and uses lots of mushrooms.
Recipe
Belgian carbonnade flamande is one of that nation's great gifts to world cuisine. It's a dark, rich stew or braise that has a hint of sweet-sour-salty-spicy going on -- and it's fantastic with deer, elk or moose.
Venison
Stroganoff is a great example of what the Italians call brutti ma buoni, "ugly but good." It ain't the prettiest dish out there, but it's pure comfort food joy. I make mine with venison backstrap, and it's damn good.
Mushrooms
If Porcini are the kings of the mushroom world, chanterelles are its queen. There are several varieties of chanterelle, ranging…
Recipe
Boudin, the ultimate Cajun comfort food. Not quite a sausage, boudin is more like jambalaya in a hog casing. You eat it on crackers or just by hand, right out of the casing. I learned how to make it at Legnon's in Lafayette, and here's my version.
Recipe
Sorrel sauce. It's so basic, yet so profoundly useful... and awesome. Sorrel tastes like lemonade in a leaf, and both wild and cultivated varieties grow like weeds in any garden. This rich, tart sauce is perfect with pasta, poached fish or poultry, or any other lightly cooked meat.
Charcuterie
Fromage de tete. Coppa di testa. Presskopf. Brawn. Anything but "head cheese." Only that's what this is. This is the head of a wild boar I shot, cooked and pressed into a terrine pan. It's actually damn good. No, really.