Ducks and Geese

Goose Pastrami

If there is one perfect recipe for Canada goose breasts, this is it. Pastrami. Cured like corned beef, then coated in coriander and black pepper and smoked.

Pheasant, Grouse, Quail

On Eating Sage Grouse

Sage grouse have an undeserved reputation as poor table fare. Here are tips and tricks to cooking and eating your next sage hen.

Recipe

Spruce or Fir Tip Beer

Beer with spruce or fir tips? Sounds crazy, but it isn't. Spruce tip beer was a thing in Colonial America, and many craft brewers are making modern versions. This is my recipe. It's an amber ale with enough Sierra Nevada fir tips to act like dank, Northwestern hops.

Recipe

Making Gose Beer

Here it is, my first beer recipe on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. As you might expect, it's an offbeat beer called a gose, which is a light, tart and slightly salty beer from northern Germany. My version uses foraged juniper, backyard lemon rind and handmade sea salt.

Wild Game

Wild Turkey Leg Carnitas

Quite possibly the best thing to make with wild turkey drumsticks and wings, which can be really tough and stringy. Braise them slowly until the meat falls off the bone, then pull the meat, crisp it and serve it in tacos or burritos.

Fish

Smoked Bluefish Pate

Ah, the unloved bluefish. I grew up catching and eating these oily, oceanic piranhas, and I love them still. Smoked bluefish is one of my favorite smoked fish, largely because I can then make this pate from it.

Featured

Wild Herbs: Monardella Villosa

Mountain pennyroyal is a widespread mountain herb in the American West. Think of it as a combination of mint and marjoram. It is one of our most spectacular native wild herbs.

Wild Game

Duck Sausages, Hunter’s Style

This is a very traditional recipe for duck sausages, made with caraway, juniper and sage. It works very well with "off" ducks like spoonies, snow geese, diver or sea ducks, or Canada geese.

Preservation Recipes

Fennel Sauerkraut

I grew an awful lot of fennel over the winter. So much that I needed to find a use for it. I found one. Fennel sauerkraut. It may be my new favorite kraut.

Recipe

Beer Sauce with Duck

Duck breast. Beer. Wild berries. What's not to love? This is an original recipe very, very loosely inspired by an Icelandic dish that uses beer and malt (or beer) vinegar as the main component in the sauce. It's one of the first times I've used beer this way, and it won't be the last.

Recipe

Carbonnade Flamande

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.

Wild Game

Pigeon or Dove Tortellini

This is a classic Italian recipe they use with pigeons, but it will work with squab, doves or even teal, too. Roasted birds, chopped fine and stuffed into an egg pasta, served with juniper butter with rosemary.