If you remember the British cooking series, Two Fat Ladies, of PBS and BBC fame, you’ll immediately recognize Clarissa Dickson Wright as the taller of the two, not the proud chainsmoker who passed away from lung cancer in 1999. Dickson Wright is the co-author of The Game Cookbook with Scottish farmer and outdoorsman, Johnny Scott.
A gorgeously illustrated review copy sent to us by the publisher, The Game Cookbook takes standard table game and puts a variation on it that brings out the best qualities through innovative experimentation, with classic recipes and those that seem to have been magically created by neighbors on the other side of the authors’ hedge.
Included are recipes that are very traditional in the UK and Europe. Others reach to the Middle East and South Asia, modified from recipes based in preparing more traditional farm-raised meats. Well-read and always willing to tell a story, Dickson Wright colors the recipes with asides of family histories and remembrances of foreign travel and meals had with friends.
You’ll find that it’s very much a UK book with such references as “wapiti”, which those of us in the US and Canada recognize as elk: what they call elk in Europe and the UK, we call moose in North America.
The artwork gracing the pages is a mix of old paintings, of hunting and fishing in North America and Europe, even movie stills (James Mason looks quite dashing with a side-by-side), and then photos of completed dishes just as beautiful as the sketches and historical art. Together they bring to the reader the old and new of game and fish cuisine, along with anecdotes that can prepare the neophyte hunter or angler for their first hunting or fishing experience.
At the end of the book is a listing of hunting and fishing organizations in the UK and US, along with a collection of wildlife agencies in the United States. For those who might not be personally able to collect their own main component of a game or fish dish, a listing of game suppliers offering meat farm-raised animals (unlike in Europe, where wild game and fish are sold in many shops, the selling of true wild game in the US has been illegal for years) provides an option.
One of the topics that I keyed in on, because it puts so much fear in the new game chef, is aging. In the US of late, as the tradition of hunting has skipped one, two or even three generations, the result of more Americans moving into urban areas in pursuit of employment, the art of aging has been forgotten. If you read some of the forums on the Internet, there’s such an intimidation toward aging and meat contamination that it can sometimes be humorous, sometimes sad…. What would people do if suddenly our refrigerators no longer worked and we were suddenly dumped into a kitchen life experience most families had up until the end of the early part of the last century?
Aging was a heavily practiced technique for stretching the day’s take, improving flavor and tenderizing a tough old bird, or side of venison. It all has to do with air temperature and humidity: cool and moist tops the list, and extends the aging time. The author goes through the aging process for just about every meat type taken, from grouse, to pheasant to venison.
There are also recipes for those that might not be specifically sought in the US and Canada, but are looked forward to in Europe and the UK, such as carp. There are recipes for grouse, pheasant, elk, moose, antelope, caribou, wild boar, partridge (chukar), quail, dove, American woodcock, snipe, hare (jackrabbit), cottontail, salmon trout, sea trout, zander (yellow perch), pike and of course goose.
At the back just before the meat supplier’s list, is a collection of recipes for compotes, sauces and stocks bringing out the best flavors of the dish.
When it came to testing a recipe, I decided it was time to use one of the many pheasants that Ziggy had pointed out for me last year—the dish quick to prepare and a rich, creamy mix of flavors!
PHEASANT WITH NOODLES AND HORSERADISH CREAM
A bit sweet. A bit tangy. All delicious!
Ingredients:
1/3 cup (3/4 stick) butter
4 pheasant breasts
4 shallots, chopped (if unavailable, use 4 tablespoons of chopped mild onions)
Vietnam holds my first memories, some of them horrific: the bloodiest days of 1968’s “Little Tet” Offensive in May, marked in my mind by a US Army chopper firing rockets into a Vietcong machine gun post in a Saigon highrise; waking up in the public recovery room at the US Army’s hospital at Tan Son Nhut, among Vietnamese civilians wounded in the war…all well recorded in my 2004 Amazon Topseller memoir.
Other memories as the son of an American expat businessman, weren’t so traumatic and actually quite pleasant: skiing up and down the Saigon River to the Club Nautique (no, the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction wasn’t playing on the transistor radio) , trips to Dalat and Vung Tau, and my first taste of grilled venison noodle salad, otherwise known as Bun Thit Nuong Xa, thit nai being the venison (“meat deer” syntax) and xa the lemongrass that I think makes any wild game that much better.
The restaurant was in Saigon and I think we started going there in 1970 and continued as patrons until our leaving in 1972. Owned by a Frenchman and his Vietnamese wife, and dimly lit for romance it had a décor that would have made Graham Greene envious, but it was the food that made it one of the better-known restaurants in Saigon.
Bun Thit Nai Nuong Xa was only one of what were several courses required of business dinners designed for schmoozing clients, and especially bringing the family as family is very important in Asia. Company wining and dining budgets sure helped keep a family of four fed in those days. All I cared about though, as a boy of seven and then eight, was that big bowl of rice noodles topped by a mound of venison darkened by fire and sweet to the taste.
Over the years since I started deer hunting, I’ve played with the idea of putting it together as I remembered. Often, though, I’d just make a venison chili, marinated steaks, or an oven roast. As I’ve matured in my tastes and trained myself to recognize the different spices that make up dishes, I finally asked myself, what was it about that dish, aside from great tasting venison (probably a muntjac deer hunted by some Degar hunter in the Central Highlands, or a market hunter on one of the rubber plantations)?
When I shot such an amazingly tender mule deer up near Alturas, CA with the great assistance of newfound friends this last deer season, I suddenly got a bug to expand more than the normal repertoire of venison meals. For a meal with such a variety of aromatics and flavor, Bun Thit Nai Nuoung Xa turns out to be a very easy dish to prepare.
In California, it’s pretty easy to keep a stand of lemongrass growing all year in the Bay Area and Southern California; in a mini greenhouse, everywhere else, all year long. Makes a great tea with or without sugar and shows up in a majority of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Thai dishes, making it a worthwhile addition to anyone’s yard or window herb garden.
Finally, I said yesterday would be the day I made Bun Thit Nai Nuong Xa…and when I was done, I wondered why it too me so long: like my ours bourguignon that tastes better than beef bourguignion, Bun Thit Nai Nuong Xa tastes better than Bun Thit Nuong, i.e. the normal restaurant variety made with farmed pork…or the chicken and beef varieties for that matter.
…Yes, it’s that good!
Now you can purchase venison from ranches, but as far as I’m concerned farmed-raised deer is just a very lean beefsteak that used to have antlers instead of steer horns. Farm-raised means drugs, if even the lightest amount of antibiotics, and worst, fed a regulated diet of pellets and feed that comes in bags for improved muscle growth for weight at the market…all thanks to the USDA: we wonder why there’s obesity in the US?
If you want to get true organic venison, one that has been feeding on a variety of naturally occurring flora, living life in the wilds, absorbing all that made us that more connected to the healing qualities of the Earth, you’re going to have to get your venison with a gun or bow, or have a friend willing to share…
In just about every country outside the US, you can pay someone to shoot your venison…but why cut yourself out of the cycle of life equation that brings you that much closer to appreciating what you’re eating…or should be eating?
And while I’d never hunt muntjac in Asia as they’re definitely endangered there, I’d sure hunt them in Ireland and the UK where increasing numbers run the risk of a detrimental effect on native species of deer…as for New Zealand, with its low human population and major red deer populations hunting’s a given.
Now there are a lot of Vietnamese BBQ meat noodle salad recipes out there, but I’ve been enjoying reading the Vietnamese recipes published by the Ravenous Couple. Many of their recipes bring me back to the ones my mom learned from her Saigonese friends. Of course, as with all the recipes designed for meat from farm animals, I had to modify for wild game…
I wanted the venison to stand out, which means I had to remove some ingredients in the salad, and add to, and modify the marinade to deal with the dryness of venison—you’d be amazed at what good molasses can do!
Here is the recipe and please remember to comeback to make a comment below once you’ve finished enjoying your home cooked Bun Thit Nai Nuoung Xa–like traditional publications, it costs money to bring these articles FREE to YOU, paid for and supported by advertisers…part of which is attracted by rankings on Google, which is added to by the number of comments…You clicking on advertising links and making sure to make a comment on something you enjoyed means we’re able to keep bringing you useful information..and if you have a blog, too, the link to your blog through your comment brings your ranking up, too: win-win–Thank you and bon apetit!
If you’ve not got a local Asian foods market, you might find these ingredients and other things at Amazon worth ordering:
Bun Thit Nai Nuong Xa (BBQ Venison Noodle Salad) [Recipe]
Serves four
Perfect Thit Nai cuts
Ingredients
1-2 lbs of moose, blacktail, whitetail, mule deer or elk sliced ¼-inch thick and large enough so they won’t fall through a fish BBQ grill
1 Cucumber cut in half, or quartered and then julienned
A bunch each of fresh mint, Thai basil, and cilantro some rolled and sliced, some leaves left whole for the chopped salad
One package of rice vermicelli
2 green scallion minced
1 tbs peanut oil
3 tbs fresh peanuts coarsely ground then roasted.
Marinade
1/4 cup minced Lemongrass (Xa) stalk [Cut the stalk an inch from the ground and trim off the green leaves to boil in water for a great tea]
1/4 cup brown sugar—you can use refined sugar, but I think the added molasses adds something special.
2 tbs fish sauce (Nuoc Mam—“water fish”)
1 tsp ground pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced (use more according to taste)
2-3 shallots, minced, or a tbs of thinly sliced red onions
1 tbs sesame oil
2 tbs soy sauce
1-2 tbs of molasses
Nuoc Mam Cham (This is the sweet delicious dipping sauce you get served with Chai Gios [Imperial Rolls])
And even this recipe I just mess around with above for my own tastes everytime I cook…
Everyone…and I mean EVERYONE has his or her own family take on this sauce in Vietnam. I’ve had it salty. I have had it bitter…and I’ve had it so sickeningly sweet I should have poured it on a strawberry sundae—you have my permission to experiment!
Steps
Mix the marinade to taste. Remember, everyone has different tastebuds and cultural tastes. Myself, I start with the recipe I’ve put together and add and subtract at each cooking session to make sure the marinade tastes exactly the way I like it.
Immerse and stir the venison in the marinade. Cover and set in the refrigerator for at least an hour. I like to let it set for 2-3 hours to really get that marinade to the core.
Start up the grill. I prefer to use a small Weber–and use charcoal…gas sucks. If you use a large one, you have to fill it up with a lot of charcoal. With a small Weber, I get high heat without wasting a bunch of charcoal—you want that meat right down there, almost touching the coals to really sear and get the molasses to crust over. Crusting helps keep the normally dry venison moist.
Place the meat in a fish and vegetable basket grill and place on the grill.
Cook the meat on one side for 2-3 minutes (we’re talking high heat here) until browning and slight blacking of tips…all that caramelizing for great taste!
Remove the venison from the fire. Might be sticking, so let it cool on the grill so that it’s not falling to pieces as you remove it from the basket grill.
While the meats resting, roast the ground peanuts in a dry frying pan to brown them slightly and bring out their flavor, then set aside.
Heat up the peanut oil, or cottonseed oil can work, and fry the minced scallions until slightly sweated and then place on a paper towel to remove some of the oil and set aside.
Boil the package of rice vermicelli, drain and set aside—if you want your noodles cold, then I suggest doing this first, or while the meat is marinating.
In a soup bowl (if you have an actual Pho bowl of china, so much the better), place some of the chopped salad, then a layer of the rice vermicelli.
Slice the cooked venison into large bite sizes easily picked up by chopsticks and place on top.
Top with a light sprinkling of the prepared scallions and peanuts
Serve with chopsticks and small bowl of the nuoc mam cham for your guests to dip the venison, or just pour over the whole dish and mix.
L-R: Ace, Billy Norbury, Jesse Hruby, Cork Graham, Chris Bartholf, Joey Coleman and Ziggy
Wildlife conservation has, sadly, not been immune to the “we only care if it has a cute and cuddly face” groundswell that has swamped the animal protection, and self-proclaimed environmental movements of late: everyone wants to hunt the “dastardly” wild hog that grows its population like rats. But, no one wants to take the “cute and cuddly” black bear or mountain lion in California.
In California, there’s even a moratorium on the public hunting of the mountain lion, even though the mountain lion population in California is one of the largest, if not the largest, in the Western United States. This overextended population is eating the truly endangered desert bighorn in Southern California to extinction, and along with poor burning and logging practices, i.e. very infrequently, deer populations in California are also dropping.
Because of this, I started singling out the other major California predator that we are legally allowed to hunt on a public tag draw system: even though the misguided, and often mislead, anti-hunting community repeatedly tries to prevent it. My suggestion to newbie hunters is—until California Fish and Game is finally allowed to fully implement well-researched management practices, well-used in other states on deer and mountain lion, free of political grandstanding and meddling—to give deer a break, and instead get a bear tag.
Bear’s Better Than Venison?
“But are bear edible?” is the oft-repeated response. They’re delicious and can easily be prepared using a number of beef, or pig recipes that require low and slow cooking…as most recipes designed to retain moisture, soften muscle tissue and kill diseases that used to be prevalent in even farm pigs, like brucelosis and trichinosis…think braising, stews, dried and fermented sausages, roasts cooked past pink.
Average thought is that those who hunt bear only hunt bear for the hide and trophy. For those who actually do hunt bear and use as much of an animal as possible we feel that we get more out of bear than a deer: meat, organs (bear liver makes a phenomenal paté), hide (simply tanned make great rollup pillows for the couch and luxuriously soft linings for baby cribs, as done by Native tribes and pioneers, especially with a thick under layer of fur that comes with the cold of late fall) , claws (great for Native American artwork), tallow (great for rendering to cooking lard–a process definitely not recommended for much more gamey fat from deer), and if you’re knowledgeable in Asian homeopathic medicinal practices, medicine for ailments such as a bruising and arthritis. If you’ve ever had the chance to try a berry pie or pastry made with bear lard instead of Crisco or butter, you’ll remember the nutty flavor of bear lard that makes that pastry the best you’ve ever had!
Into the Mountains
With this mother lode of useable products drawing me to the mountains of the Mendocino National Forest, I arrived the afternoon before Veterans Day and set up camp. The objective was to venture out from camp at the crack of dawn, and work deep down into the canyon formed by the Eel River. Bears, like elk and moose, love water—the more water the better. They drink it. They keep cool in it. And, they wallow in the mud pools along its shore.
At least that was the intention before I realized, that I couldn’t get the firewood soaked by the previous day’s rain burning hot, and that the Snugpak sleeping bag I was evaluating on this trip, was a comfort rating off for the freeze that hit that night—disorientated and shivering, I woke every two hours.
The next morning, I was so tired, not really wanting to go off the shelf and into the canyon after a bear that was surely going to square at 6-foot-plus and over 300lbs translating to two-day pack out of all that meat by a single hunter. Electing to first drive up to a lookout and check the activity across the river canyon with my binoculars and spotting scope, I loaded my Brittany, excited about his first hunt for bear, in my Ram and drove out of camp.
Turn of the Track
Not more than a mile up the forest road, we came upon another pickup with dog boxes behind the cab. I recognized them as the group that arrived at the campground late the night before, anticipative of the four-day weekend. Exchanging greetings, I asked them what they were up to: “We’re bear hunting.”
Mentioning I was doing the same, but spot-n-stalk instead of over hounds, the owner of the hound crew, Billy Norbury, countered, “Our hounds just got on a track…If they tree him, do you want to shoot it?”
Enthused by the offer, I pulled over and we chatted for only a few minutes before we heard the howls. “Grab your rifle!” Jesse Hruby said.
Running, while loading a magazine into my Model 700, I kept Ziggy alongside at heel as we sped for the treed bear. Up in the tree, the bear that had been safe from the hounds below suddenly became anxious.
“You better shoot him,” one of the hunters yelled as he held a hound by the collar. “He’s gonna run!”
Raising my rifle, I quickly had the crosshairs of my Nightforce NXS on the bear’s chest, just behind its shoulder—the boiler-room we like to call it. When the shot went off, the bear climbed down as if untouched.
The bear was only 20 yards away when I shot…I couldn’t have missed!
Just as the bear hit the ground running, Ziggy had already broke from my side as if he were fetching a pheasant, and was up there with the hounds, which were trying to bay the bear. An immediate round of shots, one of them another Deep Curl 180 gr. from my .300 Winchester Magnum, and it was down for good.
Calling Ziggy back to heel, I was reminded of how much the excitement of hunting with hounds can be like the excitement of combat…sometimes almost as dangerous with all those bullets flying when a bear is on the ground.
.308 cal. Speer Deep Curl 180gr. bullets equal tight groups!
Could This Be the First Bear Taken With A Speer Deep Curl?
While removing the hide from the carcass, and preparing the meat cuts, I noticed a bullet hole in the side that was nearest me during my first shot. I was still smarting from thinking that I had missed the first shot. I’m not that bad of a shot!
When I saw the perfectly mushroomed bullet, I immediately realized what had happened. In the excitement of the moment I must have shot through a branch. That the .308 cal., 180 gr. bullet was able to retain 42.4 percent (76.4 gr.), keeping a perfect shape mushroomed shape (instead of exploding), and penetrate that far was impressive.
Because I normally try to get as close as I can to whatever I’m shooting, this was the first bullet I’ve ever found in game I’ve shot. Not that I normally look for them, but most of the game I’ve shot for the table, I’ve shot at an angle that permits modern high-power bullets to pierce both lungs and break through thinner than shoulder joint bones and exit the skin on the other side. This means I don’t lose shoulder meat, which is a lot when you’re as meticulous as I am in using every part as possible of the animal that I kill.
Designed as a replacement for the long utilized Speer Hot Cor, the Speer Deep Curl is definitely a bit more. While the original Hot Cor was exactly that—a hot core—hot lead poured into copper tubing, the Deep Curl’s lead core to copper jacket bonding is based on an electrical process.
When I saw the bullet for the first time, I also noticed the much more aerodynamic quality of the bullets shape. In essence, this, and the concave bullet base, is what adds to the excellent accuracy of the bullet. In coming up with a load of 80 grains of Hodgdon H1000 to get the best vibration out of my 24-inch Remington factory issue rifle barrel, the bullet groups were going between 1MOA and 1/2MOA. For a non-Accubond or Ballistic Tip bullet shape, that’s awesome…
After a quick chat with Tim Brandt, PR Manager at Speer, as the Speer Deep Curl is so new and not in every gun shop, this might be the first black bear taken with the new bullet. From the amount of cohesion and pattern of the mushroom, I’d say this is a definite improvement on the Hot Cor and look forward to using it on feral pigs, deer, caribou and elk in the coming year!
CONTROVERSY AND THE HUNTING HOUND
Like many hunters who enjoy venturing into the woods for the solitude and intimacy with the natural world that only spot-n-stalk and still-hunting provide, chasing after a pack of Walkers or Black and Tans might seem like having to walk down a block behind a bunch of drunk hooligans.
…But, having seen bear, fox, raccoon, and mountain lion hunting hounds in action, I have to tip my hat to them and those who have such a love of their dogs, spending the money and time in the field training and keeping their hounds sharp. Keeping their dogs in tip-top shape and awareness is one of the reasons that I received such a gracious offer from these hound hunters who I’d never even been introduced to until my pulling up in my pickup: fill a bear tag and hunting’s pretty much done.
Yes, you can run hounds during many parts of the year, but hunting’s not just coursing. Hunting involves a shot being fired and a dead bear on the ground, which is the whole edifying experience for the hounds…not making the kill would be as dismal for Ziggy if I sent him out for pheasant, then getting the bird he pointed into the air and didn’t shoot, not offering him the full reward and experience circle, of a retrieve.
An added benefit of hunting over hounds is that if a hunter decides not to take the animal, the hounds can be leashed and pulled away from the base of the tree and the bear is permitted to run down and escape. Many bear are shot during deer season by deer hunters with an afterthought bear tag—often meaning a bear that is jumped. In that moment of surprise, it’s hard to tell if it’s female, which are illegal in other states, or more importantly, whether there’s an unnoticed accompanying cub or cubs.
By using hounds, the hunter has enough time to see if it’s the right bear to take, and adjust appropriately and lessen the chance of orphaned bear cubs.
Many might say, “That’s not sporting—the bears up in a tree!”
That’s correct, hunting is not sport. It’s an opportunity to get healthy, organic meat protein. It’s a much-needed tool of wildlife conservation….football, basketball and baseball are sports. As a tool of wildlife conservation, hunting with hounds is a very useful tactic: and why game wardens and biologist who deal with depredation, either by bears or mountain lions, even in states where hunting with hounds by the public is not allowed, like Oregon, use them to most efficiently control predator populations; and practice efficient wildlife management for a healthier ecocsystem.
Hank Shaw’s Bear Recipe: check out friend and food writer Hank Shaw’s bear pelmeni recipe here: Hunter Angler Gardner Cook.
…In the next month, I’ll be coming up with a recipe by modifying a childhood recipe from my childhood in Southeast Asia that if it works as good as my ours bourguignon recipe, modified from Julia Child’s beef bourguignon, should be just as spectacular!
COMMENTS: What do you think about bear hunting? What do you think about hunting with hounds? Got something to add? Feel free to let us know by using the form below—on this site we believe in true free speech and believe censorship is a crime…
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TOPICS: Speer PR Manager Tim Brandt talks about the history of Speer and new line of Deep Curl replacing the lauded Hot Cor bullet.
