In 1972, I arrived in Singapore to attend the Singapore American School and soon after was introduced to a documentary film, called Future Shock, based on a book by Alvin Toffler and narrated by Orson Welles which was taking the US by storm. As a child, it totally freaked me out….perhaps one of the reasons I avoided computers until I could avoid them no longer. At that time there was also a large movement to get back to basics.

It revealed itself in the very large “Ecology” movement of the 1970s (remember the riff on the American flag, in green with the Greek letter ‘Theta’ where the stars and blue background would have been?), and publications like The Foxfire Books, a collection of stories detailing life in Southern Appalachia. I still have my father’s copies that he picked up on visits back to the States. It’s full of information on woodcraft and pre-supermarket self-reliance. They even showed how to properly scald a pig, which I used in this episode of Cork’s Outdoor TV on roasting a pig.

I’m reminded greatly of the back-to-basics movement of the 1970s, by these latest “slow food” and “green food” movements recorded by Michael Pollan and Paul Bertolli. What could be better than eating food that led to a slower and more relaxed society? But, so much information has been lost due to the increasing lack of family histories and traditions being handed down through live practice, i.e. on a farm or ranch. So many generations have moved off the land and into cities. Nowadays, most slow food information is that carried into the US by new immigrants from Asia and Latin America.

This is a pity as there was a lot of slow food information held in the family lines that came here from Northern Europe. In March of this year, I had the opportunity to complete a phone interview for Cork’s Outdoors Radio with one such food authority on her latest book on getting back to the basics (be sure to listen to the audio and watch the show below).

Darina Allen is noted as the “Julia Child of Ireland” and has been entertaining and educating on the subject of cooking in Ireland and the United Kingdom through her TV show and a collection of books. Her latest book, Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Time Honored Ways are The Best – Over 700 Recipes Show You Why, is that treasure trove of not only Irish, British, and foods from other parts of the world, like Italian slow food recipes, but also articles and remedies for raising your own chickens for meat and eggs, how to properly butcher large farm animals like pigs, cattle and lambs.

It’s a gorgeous book, with photos that took all the seasons to create, evidenced by plants in bloom, and the foods in season. It’s all about being seasonal, Allen says, something clear in how she describes not only those foods that are collected on the farm, but also on a day’s walk in the woods gathering such morsels for the kitchen as nettles, mushrooms and a number of herbs, leafy greens, and berries.

Both land and water are covered, with foraging rewards, like limpets that are easily found in the Americas, and are cooked in a number of dishes that incorporate the bounty of the farm and field.

Though spending a lot of time reading through the scrumptious recipes that anyone would easily take a few years preparing all the scrumptious family meals using organic ingredients (either purchased or foraged): pies, breads, puddings, roasts and grilled fishes, I was keen on the game and fish sections.

Hare, venison, duck and goose are covered well, both as farm offerings and from the marsh, and of course the obligatory pheasant, but I’d done enough pheasant recipes lately, so I quickly focused on the basil cream rabbit recipe. It was the very cottontail taken with a .22 pellet rifle from Crosman. Who would have thought the hardest part for this recipe was to get the caul fat: Thank God for Dittmer’s in Mountain View, CA!

Watch the preparation and presentation on Cork’s Outdoors and return for the recipe below:

SADDLE OF RABBIT WITH CREAM, BASIL, AND CARAMELIZED SHALLOTS

 reprinted with permission from the publisher, KYLE BOOKS

SERVES 6

6 saddle of rabbit (use the legs for confit)

4oz pork caul fat

salt and freshly ground pepper

extra virgin olive oil

2⁄3 cup dry white wine

2⁄3 cup Chicken Stock

2⁄3 cup cream

2oz basil leaves

Caramelized Shallots (see below)

 Steps:

1. Trim the flap of each saddle, if necessary (use in stock or pâté).
2. Remove the membrane and sinews from the back of the saddles
3. with a small knife.
4. Wrap each saddle loosely in pork caul fat.
5. Season well with salt and freshly ground pepper.
6. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Place the rabbit pieces in a stainless steel or heavy roasting pan and roast for 8–12 minutes, depending on size.
7. Remove from the oven, cover, and allow to rest.
8. Degrease the pan if necessary, and put the wine to reduce in the roasting pan.
9. Reduce by half over medium heat, add the chicken stock, and continue to reduce.
10. Add the cream.
11. Bring to a boil, season with salt and freshly ground pepper, and add lots of snipped basil.
12. Serve the rabbit with the basil sauce, caramelized shallots, boiled new potatoes, and a good green salad.

CARAMELIZED SHALLOTS

1lb shallots, peeled

4 tablespoons butter

1⁄2 cup water

1–2 tablespoons sugar

salt and freshly ground pepper

 Steps:

1. Put all the ingredients in a small saucepan, and add the peeled shallots.
2. Cover and cook on a gentle heat for about 10–15 minutes or until the shallots are soft and juicy.
3. Remove the lid, increase the heat to medium, and cook, stirring occasionally.
4. Allow the juices to evaporate and caramelize. Be careful not to let them burn.

For more information on Darina Allen’s cooking school in Ireland, check out her school’s website: Ballymaloe Cookery School

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy Darina Allen’s interview on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

Hung for two days in the garage and sitting in the bottom of my freezer for the last three years, I was wondering if the goose was still good. One of a snow and specklebelly pair that I had taken in the Sacramento Valley while trying out a new SP10 and 3-1/2” Remington 1187, it fell to the matched Federal Premium Blackcloud BB-sized pellets. 

That Blackcloud collar is the reason birds just drop when they get hit...

When I was done with the aging process and had plucked them (the fresh hearts and livers had gone into a Ziploc, the day the geese were taken, for a later liver paté greatly enjoyed and long missed) I wrapped them in a three layers of cellophane. 

Surprisingly, three years later, not even a trace of freezer burn! 

Originally, I was going to do a book review of Chef John D. Folse hunter’s cookbook bible, After the Hunt, but then something wonderful happened—the first round of figs turned a beautiful dark purple, signaling their ripeness! 

My huntin’ buddy Hank Shaw has written an number of articles on syrups, and one fig syrup recipe caught my eye. But, I enjoy eating my figs fresh and whole, so in order to stretch them, I decided to make the sauce for my goose more like a turkey’s cranberry sauce, thick and more like a jam. 

Figs from now until end of A Zone deer season in September

On the subject of the meat and “things not to do” once again surprised me by actually doing them. Always told that refreezing meats would make them somehow worse didn’t seem to be true with this goose. 

Two weeks ago, I had gone through the whole process of defrosting and brining the goose, but when the day came for cooking, I realized I didn’t have all the ingredients for the full dinner, nor the time—probably happened to you as you remembered a dinner or other meeting almost too late? 

Taking the goose in the pot that it had been sitting in to dry (I like to remove the brine for a day to let the skin dry in order to improve the browning and crisping of the skin), I put the whole thing in the meat freezer. 

A week later, I had everything and the time….defrosting again, with trepidation: I was told that meat frozen and refrozen is just horrible….And when it was all done, the goose was delicious! 

Since the Fig Sauce takes the longest, make sure to prepare it first. 

Specklebelly Goose with Fig Sauce

Fig Sauce Ingredients:

1 can chicken broth 

1 tsp Herb de Provence 

1 cup of sugar 

10 figs 

1 tsp salt 

2 cups of Pinot Noir (in this recipe a bottle of 2007 Peters Vineyard from Papapietro-Perry Winery was used) 

Steps:

1. Finely chop six figs and add to a saucepan. 

2. Save four figs and cut them lengthwise into sixths and set aside. 

3. Add all ingredients and bring to a fast boil, thicking the sauce through evaporation—about 25 minutes on high heat. Sauce should be the consistency of thin jam. 

4. Add the figs slices and simmer for another 10 minutes and set aside. 

Goose Ingredients:

1 Specklebelly goose 

1 large red onion 

1 tbsp Salt 

1 tbsp Black pepper 

1 tbsp Olive Oil 

Steps:

1. Brine the goose over night in a gallon of water with one cup each of sugar and kosher salt (use only ceramic or plastic containers so that there’s no reaction of the brine with metal). 

2. Drain the brine and pat away the excess moisture on the goose and place it back in the empty brining container 

3. Let is dry in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours. 

4. Place the red onion in the cavity and rub the goose skin olive oil and then the salt and black pepper. Truss the legs or simply stick in the open cavity under the tail. 

5. Place in a cast-iron skillet and place in an oven that has been preheated to 400-degree Fahrenheit. 

6. Roast for 25-30 minutes at 400 degrees. 

7. Remove and let rest for 10 minutes and then carve, serving with a two cooked fig slices and sauce. 

8. Save the goose drippings and use to brown the potatoes. 

Cook goose like a great steak -- medium rare!

Roast Potatoes with Salsa de Mani (Peanut Butter Sauce)

Salsa de mani ready to serve

Preparation time: 40 minutes

Modified to use country roast potatoes instead of the traditional boiled, this family recipe has been served by mom ever since I can remember. An Ecuadorian recipe of Inca origins, it’s normally served with that other Incan delicacy, cuy (roast guinea pig). 

Ingredients:

6 Red Potatoes 

3/4 Cup Chunky Peanut butter (sweetened) 

1/2 Cup White onion, thinly sliced crescents 

1 tbsp  of Achiote seeds 

1 Cup Milk 

1 whole Onion 

Pinch of salt 

1. Wrap the potatoes in moistened paper towel and put them in the microwave for 6-7 minutes until soft to squeeze.
2. Quarter them and dowse with olive oil.
3. Fry the achiote seeds until the oil leeches out.
4. Remove the seeds and then fry the onion in the red-tinted achiote oil until they’ve sweated and translucent.
5. Add the milk, pinch of salt, and then disolve the peanut butter in the milk, stirring as it comes to a low boil. Don’t over cook the sauce. It should be creamy and the consistency of almost watery tooth paste, not peanut butter.
6. Put the quartered potatoes in skillet previously used to roast the goose, uncovered, to brown in a 500 degree Faranheit oven, 10-15 minutes.

NOTE: I used the Big Green Egg for the goose and the potatoes. 

Total Preparation Time: 2 days

Save the carcass to make a great soup!

 

It’s amazing how the screech of a poorly blown duck call can sound like a teacher drawing her nails across a blackboard. Such is the sound of waterfowl hunters who start much too late in their preparation for the season.     

Being prepared isn’t just about calling, either: there’s making sure your shotgun’s shooting as well as last year; checking your duck jacket to see if you need to patch some holes, or just get a new one. Is your ammo shooting the way you think it is?     

Every year it behooves the hunter to make sure everything is working as they want, and to find out long before it’s time to head out into the field. All too often the first chance at putting wild duck on the table turns dismal—leaky waders, missed shots—or, more dangerously so, duckboats sinking!     

A great waterfowl season begins months before that opener in October.     

Take out your waterfowl hunting clothing now. If it’s your duckhunting coat, hopefully you didn’t pack it away in a footlocker or drawer for the off-season. This compresses the insulating materials and such repeated season storage depletes their ability to keep you warm the next season. Check it for those holes, and perhaps take it to the tailor to have those shell loops replaced if they’re all stretched out.     

Get Callin’

Spring is also the best time to start your calling practice. As master duck caller—and the one who taught me how to call ducks as a thirteen-year-old newbie duck hunter—Billy Gianquinto recommends, every duck hunter should purchase their calls in spring, get a good instruction tape or CD and practice everyday. It’s during this time, that I carry my duck and goose calls in my truck so that I can practice during a day’s commute.     

What’s nice about practicing your calling in the vehicle is that you need to have one hand free for driving, which forces you to learn how to use your call with one hand: much more appropriate for a duck hunter holding a shotgun in a blind with the non-call hand. This especially comes in handy when learning how to use a goose flute with one hand instead of the normal two.     

Get a good collection of duck hunting videos, not just the slicing DVDs that just show the kill shots. Get the DVDs that take you from calling to learning how to set a decoy set, to best of all, how to call based on what the ducks are doing.  Gianquinto and Cajun Duck Commander Robertson Clan have some great calling instruction videos. 

Hittin’ What You’re Shootin’ At

Cork Graham successfully testing the original Black Cloud through a Remington 11-87 and SP-10 on Sacramento Valley snows and specks

 Now’s a great time to look at what your shotgun really does and with the ammo you choose to shoot out of it. So many duck hunters just purchase a shotgun and a box of shells and head straight out into the duck blind, not even knowing how their shotgun is shooting.     

What sighting in at the range is to a deer hunter with a newly purchased rifle and scope, patterning a shotgun is to a duck and goose hunter.     

The average hunter might be surprised at how many people who purchase a new shotgun think that it need only be pointed in the general direction, and you hit what you’re shooting for. Must have been all those cartoons and mythical descriptions of how the trench guns worked in battle, especially to infantrymen whose rifle skills were wanting—but there are many that think a shotgun has magical properties.     

When I received my first pump shotgun I was surprised at how much I was missing. This was a shotgun built by a major manufacturer—what could be wrong? A trip to the range and aiming at a dot on a large piece of white butcher paper quickly offered an answer.     

The shotgun was patterning up to the right. I could have taken it to a gunsmith and had the pump modified, but instead I just remembered to adjust my shot picture while shooting. Had I not taken the shotgun to the range to find out what was really happening, I’d probably have gone on with a hit and miss for years.     

The decision to pattern a shotgun should be taken not when just getting a new shotgun, but also to see how a new shot load does out a specific firearm. It’s also wise to check into a new choke when purchasing a shotgun.     

For years I only shot the different chokes that came packaged with my shotguns and never inquired into the multitude of chokes, until last year and a chat with George Trulock, owner of Trulock Chokes and a man with a vast firearms knowledge that started in law enforcement, and distilled through many years researching the effects of chokes on shot. I learned how 3-inch chokes are a prime length for patterning a shot load especially steel shot.     

Unlike a rifle that is accurate because of the effect on a bullet by the rifling, a shotgun influences its shot effectiveness by forcing a load of shot into a column that will spread out in as uniform a pattern as possible. By having a choke that that forces the load in three inches instead of two, the pattern delivered is much more uniform: think shot hitting a wall, because it’s so steep and angle, as compared to sliding along the wall because the angle is lessened by the longer length of the 3-inch choke.     

The importance of chokes appropriate to the load was made clear a couple years ago when I tried Federal Premium’s Black Cloud ammunition for the first time. What I consider the deadliest duck medicine out there, I noticed that not only did the unique collared barrel shot perform amazingly, with solidly killed ducks, but also that the Trulock Black Cloud choke I got for hunting with the new cartridge performed admirably. One of the main reasons it works so well is that it’s designed to let out the shot and wad in a staggered manner that permits the shot to pattern effectively without creating so many flyers that destroy a pattern.     

New for this year, Federal Premium has the new Black Cloud Snow Goose load. While the first release of Black Cloud was flying at 1450 fps, the new Snow Goose is screaming at 1635 fps!     

That means it really cuts the geese, but that also means its patterning is effected differently than the slower shot. According to Trulock, the higher the speed, the wilder the flyers as they bounce off the inside wall of the choke instead of slide along its sides.     

As Trulock said, it’s a tug-of-war between killing speed and uniform patterns. Too many flyers and the loss of not only the uniformity of the pattern, but also more holes in that pattern that a duck or goose can escape through.     

Now, all these are just guidelines. Like everyone’s personal preferences for hunting equipment, a shotgun has its own personality and by learning it’s personality, not just shooting it, but modifying it, do you make sure every shot counts…and the earlier you start preparing for the fall season, the more prepared you’ll be to make your fall waterfowl season that much more enjoyable and successful.    

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy the latest news at Federal Premium on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

TOPICS: Federal Premium PR Manager Tim Brandt talks about the history of Federal Ammunition’s merge with ATK, long line of excellent ammunition for big-game and waterfowl hunting, along with the new and upcoming offerings.

Imagine a 13-year-old in a new land, dreaming of doing what his father had done at his age. The teen arrived in the US after spending all his previous years in foreign countries and reading late-arriving Boy’s Life, Outdoor Life and Field & Streams, thinking that when he returned to the nation of his nationality, he’d get to experience what his father had been blessed with from the 1930s to the late 1940s.

How wrong was that kid!

California in the late 1970s was quickly on its way to becoming the most expensive state within which to reside. Land prices forced out family-run ranches and farms, forcing sales to foreign-owned corporations. In the process, a simple handshake and promise to leave each cattle gate as found (normally closed), perhaps a bit of the meat or fish from the day’s take to the landowner, no longer led to an automatic permission to hunt privately-owned land, i.e. most often the best land to hunt and fish in the United States.

No, no, no. Instead, large club were formed to purchase hunting and fishing rights at thousands of dollars, something a young teen couldn’t even imagine of paying then. The only options were to hunt public national forests for deer, and bear, (pigs focus on free eats and safety on private land, so were never really an option unless you had access), and the waterfowl refuges.

If my parents hadn’t stepped in to get a family membership with the now long gone American Sportsman’s Club (most of the properties went under the Golden Ram and Wilderness Unlimited domain), I probably would have spent years on public land getting skunked like so many neophyte hunters experience on public land. What was more important wasn’t the access to private land, but the education available from the much more experienced hunters and anglers on the membership roles, and, too, the hunting seminars.

Billy Gianquinto conducted one of them. This is the man in 1977, who taught me to how to get ducks!

There are some people in life that you meet who just have that charismatic quality about them that makes an impression on you. When it comes to duck hunting, the one who made the best impression on me was Billy Gianquinto.

The next time I met Gianquinto after that instruction in 1977, was right after I had returned from hiding out and healing in Alaska to find that my old friend, Mark Eveslage, a cameraman well decorated with awards like the Emmy and just last year the Edward R. Murrow, was working on a new show, called the Charlie West’s Outdoor Gazette TV show. Better known for ducks, Gianquinto was their hunting host, and went off well with his own Billy and Buck waterfowl hunting show that I would enjoy regularly during the 1990s.

Nowadays, Gianquinto and I both write and host for e4outdoors.com. And all this time, he never knew that I was one of those kids he taught way back, until just a few weeks ago.

…That’s Billy Gianquinto’s gift: working with and teaching young hunters how to get their ducks—making sure the hunting line doesn’t die out with each succeeding generation. In all honesty, with all the “master” duck hunters I’ve interviewed and hunted with, my knowledge of duck hunting always ends up coming back to the tried and true teachings of Billy G.

From him, I learned how to call pintails and whistle widgeon and teal. With his knowledge I got my mallards. Though he no longer teaches it, because he can’t reach those notes anymore; I can still call in honkers with my voice. And when steel shot first came in, he taught me to “open up that choke!”

With an initial knowledge of hunting built through reading and rereading classics like Hunting the Lawless and The Outlaw Gunner, and formed by great writers, many long dead, like Nash Buckingham, Ed Neal, and Walt Christensen, Billy G’s hunting history reaches back to when he was eight years old and saw a film starring matinee idol Errol Flynn, called “Robin Hood”. With a full costume like his favorite character and a bow, he ventured by bicycle to Golden Gate Park for the squirrels and pygmy rabbits hiding in the trees and brush. Soon, he went on a “real” hunt, a duck hunt with a boss at the Boy Scout camp he worked at during his youth.

The article on that life forming event, shows exactly that mad, yet endearing, quality that duck hunters have over other hunters: who else actively anticipates the worst weather of winter and fall, and talks to themselves all the rest of the year with a duck call in their hands, and spends untold amounts of cash on the latest piece of waterfowl hunting equipment, and risks divorce just to get into a blind when the birds are in?

Personally, my own waterfowl madness started with a friend from high school in Belmont, who pestered me to join him in the sucking San Francisco Bay mud flats and islands off Redwood Shores, right after I learned to call from Billy G. I can really relate to Billy G’s conversion to duckhood—with all its pain and self-questioning. There’s just something about seeing a bright greenhead cupped and floating down into your dekes, or my favorite, as I’m at heart a goose hunter, flagging a distant flock of Canada geese that break off the main flock and almost land on your head as you lay on your back in a dry barley or wheat field, waiting to make a clean headshot.

And that doesn’t even call up memories of great meals prepared with the waterfowl taken over grain and green pastures that make me think of mallard and honkers as “filet mignon the wing.”

If you’d like to be converted to sitting in bad weather (though that can be a myth, too: many a mallard has fallen to guns on blue birds skies), and learn the tricks and tips that keep you from coming home cold and skunked, check out Billy G’s seminars at ISE Sacramento this weekend, and check out his website full of useful information and articles. And if you want to get a pintail whistle that will actually pull ducks away from others calling (it’s made of metal which is why it’s so loud), I can’t say enough good things about Billy G’s pintail whistle!

ISE

The days of having a relative teach you how to hunt and fish are sadly going the way of the California condor. Thankfully, there are still shows in California and around the country that provide that education by experienced professionals. Waterfowl, big-game, trout, salmon, steelhead, and most of the equipment you need to actually go out and do it with are available for purchase and or trying out at shows like the International Sportsmen’s Show—no, the traditional name doesn’t just mean for men, as the quickest increasing population of hunters are women!

While chatting at our mutual friend, Michael Riddle’s Native Hunt booth; black cowboy hat-wearing, fellow pig fanatic of The Hog Blog, Phillip Loughlin, shared the same hope that these shows will keep the hunter’s torch blazing and lighting the way for new hunters to get hte right information and a solid opportunity to hunt private lands locked off from the public.

The Hog Blog's Phillip Loughlin, Michael Riddle and the Native Hunt Team

Every year I wait to see what’s new and interesting and to see what new guiding operations are out there to provide the best bang for your buck experience: I’m always for a newbie hunter or angler signing up with a guide or outfitter for their first time, especially in an area that you might want to try on your own-why in the world would you want to spend more money reinventing the wheel, when overall, you can pay much less for a trip with a guide that takes care of all that time lost on trial and errors, so that you can be in the field as someone who is an important component of wildlife management and conservation?

While the San Mateo ISE show is a week over, Sacramento is still raging well: where else can you get the opportunity to meet in person outfitters that can make your dream of hunting or fishing in lands of wonders, like New Zealand, Alaska and Africa?

NEXT

1. Shot Show 2010 Recap
2. Sighting in with Nightforce Optics

Good game bird cooking all starts in the field, and carries through in the days before a bird is either cooked or put in the freezer for a later date. How long, was the question I put to my new hunting friend and writer, Hank Shaw of Hunter Angler Gardener Cook.

Hank Shaw and Cork Graham along with Ziggy after a successful pheasant opener.

 His suggestion was three to four days for a bird club pheasant, that’s basically a chicken that has been getting fast and sassy on a remote feeding system with poultry feed, as was available to us on our first hunt together at the Stockton Sportmen’s Club.

For a wild bird, Shaw’s suggestion was seven days. This is often the recommendation used in Europe, especially the UK. Whether you talk to culinary expert Hank Shaw, or one of those cooking writers we both admire, like British writer Clarissa Dickson Wright, you can’t go wrong with aging your bird–whether two days, three days or until the head separates from the body.

Yes, in traditional British bird aging, pheasants used to hang until it became so rotten it fell to the ground.

When I first moved from combat journalism to outdoor writing, as the outdoors columnist for the last large family-owned newspaper in the San Francisco Bay Area, The Times of San Mateo in 1994 (It was eaten up the ANG /Denver-based MediaNews Group conglomerate in 1997 [renamed The San Mateo Times], along with the Oakland Tribune, Alameda Star and a number of other Bay Area papers [you'll notice the columnists and writers are the same for all those papers]–All they wanted were the printers and real estate. Within a month, all journalists got their pink slips, if they weren’t already looking for more secure pastures…so much for honest local coverage; sadly, this is the way of The Press in the New Millenium: Thank God for the Internet!), I was invited to the Gabilan Valley Sportsmans Club to hunt pheasants for an article. My Chesapeake Bay retriever had his first chance at pheasants and we both had a phenomenal time.

As we were leaving, the owner recommended that we hang our birds. The suggestion was to hang them by the long tail feathers. Depending on how many days and the temperature, the pheasant would fall, indicating that it was ready to pluck and cook or put in the freezer.

TO GUT OR NOT

Personally, I prefer to eviscerate all my game and fish within moments of the kill. It cools the game quickly, which in the Sunshine Land of California is a priority, and more importantly removes all the body fluids that begin seeping into the cavity.

Microscopically, body organs are actually very porous. It’s almost like a sieve. When the body is alive, those organ membranes are vibrant, contracting and expanding to hold or release fluids, as the body needs. When the body dies and the autonomic nervous system no longer controls those actions and fluids that taint meat like urine, stomach acid and bile, those fluids begin a slow release.

It’s the immediate killing, bleeding and gutting of the trout, that I’ve caught or taught others to catch and prepare for the table, that draws the compliments for their taste.

On the other hand, pheasants, along with waterfowl, can often be improved by leaving the innards in during the aging process. You simply hang them whole up in a cool, airy place. This is Hank Shaw’s preferred method.

Personally, I like to keep the innards and use them for a number of table offerings: gravy bits, pate, to name just a few. So, leaving my pheasants, ducks and waterfowl whole is not an option.

The problem is that birds can dry out in the process of them hanging with an empty body cavity. Shaw offered a remedy: stuff a paper towel in place of the organs. It worked fine.

So what’s my method for aging pheasants and ducks and geese for that matter? Simply pluck some feathers around the vent. With the bird on its back, make a small slit above the vent, parallel to the outstretched wings. Just under the point of the breast bone is perfect.

Reach in with two to three fingers and draw out the intestines, gizzard, heart, coagulated blood, etc. Wash off the heart, liver and gizzard.

The gizzard is my favorite for gravy, also quick grilling. After washing it off, slit it down the middle and remove the tough inner skin that is all calloused by months or years of grinding gravel to digest grain. Trim all that might be green from the gizzard fluids. Wash it again after you’ve removed all suggested: inner skins, gravel and grain.

Pay special attention to the gall bladder attached to the liver. It’s dark in color. The dark black or green comes from the bile inside. If that touches any meat or the livers, it’s ruined. Cut it away while making sure to not contaminate your fingers. With heart, trimed liver and gizzard, washed, put them in a Ziploc bag to place on ice. They’ll go in the freezer for another day.

Wash out the inside of the bird and wipe it out a couple times with paper towel. Then, place one or two paper towels in the empty cavity, doing your best to keep any outside materials like dirt, dust or feathers coming in along with the stuffed paper towels.

Shaw has created a nice regulated aging box out of his wine refrigerator. I like to just hang my birds by their feet from a nail in one of the rafters in the cool open area of my garage. Depending on the air temperature, I’ll hang my birds between one to three days.

Pheasants hanging in the garage.

I prefer my birds lightly aged as I’m doing it more for the tenderizing of the meat and helping the birds best retain its moisture while cooking, which I add to with a one day stay in a brining solution once I’m preparing to cook it.

I’ll check the birds everyday to make they’ve not gone over the edge. It’s really just a process of checking the smell. There’s the birdy smell that the pheasant has when it’s freshly killed. Once the bird begins a slight ripening, I’ll immediately pluck the bird, wash it off and then stick it in the refrigerator for at least one or two days. In a Ziploc they’ll last for up to 7 months with no problem.

If you want to keep them for up to a year and a half, sink them in water in a Ziploc and the ice will keep them from getting freezer burn and drying out, just like a wooly mammoth.

…Hank Shaw has been commissioned to write a book–so stay tuned!

Happy New Year!