According to Wikipedia, game refers to any any animal hunted for food or not necessarily domesticated. For class purposes, we dispelled with the notion of ‘wild game’ roaming free around the countryside and the idea that someone went out into the woods with a 6-pack and a loaded 12-gauge and returned home with a fresh dinner. In the U.S., all game that is sold to the general population has to be commercially raised for human consumption. Game meat comes from ‘wild’ animals that typically do a bit more work for their food than the more domesticated animals we usually find on our dining room tables. This means that game meats are typically (with some exceptions) lower in fat and richer in flavor than animals like cows and chickens, thus the consumption of game can be desirable for these very reasons as people look for healthier and more flavorful meaty options in their local supermarket’s butcher counter. However, people often shy away from game…some find the flavor of game to be unappealing. For some people, it might not be as easy to find good game in their local market. Some people shy away from game because they are uncertain of how it should be cooked. As we learned in class, game isn’t always strongly flavored. Also, the same cooking principles that apply to chicken, beef, and pork will also apply to game. When cooking game, I’d say that there is one main thing to be aware of. Because game is often leaner than its domesticated counterparts, it may be a good idea to consider marinating it before cooking, especially when dealing with large game. Marinating the meat in something containing an acid (like red wine) will serve the purposes of infusing flavor and breaking down the meat’s proteins, which can help yield a more tender dish. Chef S also touched on brining – immersing a piece of meat in a salty solution for a lengthy period of time - again to help break down the protein in the meat.
We subdivided game into two main categories, small game (including birds, rabbit and squirrel) and large game (including venison, boar and bison). Starting with small game, this is the dish that Jenni and I prepared: Roasted Pheasant served with Carrot Marjoram Puree and Creamy Wild Rice with Mushrooms:
Traditionally, after pheasant is killed, it is hung up by its neck and allowed to become ‘high’, which is a nice way of saying that the bird has actually begun to decompose slightly. This process can usually take a few days and after the bird becomes ‘high’, it is then defeathered, eviscerated and ready to be cooked. I imagine that this process is not as gross as it actually sounds, or else people would be insane for trying it. I liken it to the dry-aging process for beef…the process allows the pheasant’s meat to become more concentrated and more gamey in flavor, which seems like a good thing. Today we had two fresh (non partially decomposed) pheasants to work with and they looked just like any whole chicken that you’d buy in a supermarket. I was expecting them to be much bigger than that, but I’m no bird expert. I removed the birds from the plastic wrap and noticed that there was a small goodie-bag containing a neck and liver shoved into each bird’s body cavity. I removed that bag and set it aside for later, then thoroughly rinsed and dried the birds. I seasoned the inside of each bird with salt, pepper, and placed a bay leaf and some apricots and prunes that had been allowed to soak in Grand Mariner into the cavity. The outside was also seasoned with salt, pepper, and thyme. I then laid out a few strips of thinly cut fat-back (that had also been allowed to soak in Grand Mariner) over the breast of each bird. This is called barding and is used as a way to introduce fat to a very lean meat, like this pheasant. Then I tied the birds in order to secure the strips of fat-back and to keep the stuffing inside the body cavity during cooking. I placed the birds and the necks into a large skillet and into a 400 degree oven until the birds were partially cooked through.
I would employ a technique called salmis (a classic French cooking method very commonly applied to pheasant cookery) to create the sauce to be served with the birds and to finish cooking the birds. When the birds were partially cooked through on the inside, but nice and brown on the outside, I removed them from the oven. I removed the legs and breasts from each bird (I set them aside in the ‘fridge for later use) and then chopped the carcass up into smaller pieces. The chopped carcass, including the apricot/prune filling, the roasted necks, and the skin from the legs and breasts were all returned to the same skillet, which was placed over the stove top. I deglazed the pan with white wine, added veal stock, and allowed the whole thing to reduce into nearly all the liquid had evaporated and some nice caramelization had begun to develop. The pan was again deglazed with wine, veal stock was added and the whole process was repeated 5 times in total until the desired flavor, color, and consistency had been achieved. When I strained out all of the bones, fruit, and miscellaneous debris, the resulting sauce was rich, glossy, sweet, and damn good. I nearly completed cooking the legs and breasts in a hot oven, which I suppose could be considered cheating; from what I can tell the salmis technique calls for these parts to finish cooking in the sauce that was just made. I considered this oven-cooking to be an insurance policy. These parts were cold and still pretty raw in some parts and I didn’t want to risk any reduction in the amount or quality of the sauce that I had put all of this energy into. Just before service, when these parts were nearly cooked through, I added them to the warm sauce to give them a nice glossy sheen. I had intended to further enrich the sauce with the liver (which I finely chopped), but I forgot to do that before we assembled the dish. Luckily, I remembered the liver before it was too late and I had a few quick minutes to cook it up and serve as a ‘condiment’ to the pheasant. What can I say, I sure do love my organ meats.
Duck Two Ways, served over Grilled Pineapple and Scallion Rice Custard:
Duck is the game item that I am most familiar with and I was pleased to see that it was represented on our menu today. We had a ‘traditional’ preparation of what I guess you’d call a seared duck breast, cooked to a perfect rare state of doneness. It was also served with a duck stir fry that benefited from the addition a slightly spicy black bean paste. One of the great things about duck, in addition to its great flavor, is its high fat content. It’s nearly impossible to express just how great crispy duck skin is with just words alone. That this plate was also garnished with crispy duck-skin cracklins made it that much better. Since you were most likely already thinking there was no possible way for this dish to not be excellent, I don’t feel the need to say anything else about it.
What’s interesting to me about duck, is that you can serve it undercooked like this. I asked Chef about how this could be possible when no one in their right mind would touch a piece of undercooked chicken; salmonella seems to be on everyone’s mind when talking about poultry. As he explained, the salmonella problem in the chicken industry is exacerbated by the overcrowded conditions in which chickens live and the less-than squeaky clean chicken mass-manufacturing process. When one chicken becomes infected with the bacteria, it can very easily spread to others because of these factors. This becomes much less of a concern when talking about duck processing, mostly because duck is not as popular in the U.S. as chicken, therefore it is less likely to contract salmonella as a result of these factors. You still take somewhat of a risk of contracting bacteria when eating rare duck (or any other rare or undercooked meat or poultry product), but it’s a small risk and one that lots of people (including me) are willing to take.
On to the large game, beginning with Venison Noisettes served with Cumberland Sauce and Potato Cakes:
Venison includes deer, elk, moose and caribou and it is typically a very lean source of meat. A noisette is a cut from the tenderloin, sort of like a filet mignon, but I think the noisette ‘classifciation’ relates to the best part of the loin, which I’m guessing is the middle part. Cumberland sauce is basically a fruit (citrus) based sauce that usually has jam or marmalade added to it. Pairing game with a sweet, citrusy sauce is a very classic thing and is a good way to dial down the apparent ‘gaminess’ of whatever you’re eating. I don’t really see why anyone would want to do that. If you’re going to go out of your way to eat game and potentially pay a premium price to do so, then why would you want to decrease its flavor? That’s what chicken and beef is for.
Rack of Boar:
Boar is an ancestor of the pig, and while it can be the leaner of the two, boar and pig are essentially interchangeable from a culinary standpoint. This rack of boar was frenched (just like a rack of lamb) and then covered with a dry rub made from about five different types of chilies and other flavorings. I was really surprised by how mild in flavor these boar chops were, yet, they still had much more flavor than any store-bought pork chop I’ve ever eaten.
Bison Steak:
As we learned in class, there is no difference between bison and buffalo; the North American Buffalo is a type of bison (I’m also not a biologist, so this was news to me). What’s interesting about bison is that it grows to a larger size in a shorter period of time than the typical cow that is raised for its meat. Bison meat is very lean and very low in cholesterol and also contains an enzyme that actually helps to prevent the proteins in the meat from losing moisture when they coagulate (i.e., during cooking). Considering this, I’m surprised more people don’t eat bison. Maybe the idea of it being game is off-putting to people. Additionally, bison is not that common…it was once an endangered species in the U.S. These bison steaks were quite nice in flavor and also something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. I’ve walked by ground bison in the supermarket occasionally and thought nothing of it, but I’ve never seen the steaks before. Next time I find ground bison, I’m going to give it a try as an alternative to the ground beef that we usually buy.
Looking back, this was one of my favorite classes to date. I thought that it was a really nice change of pace to be able to try all of these different meats and having exposure to all of this game makes we want to use it more in the home kitchen. I think I’ve avoided it at home in the past because I was one of those people that never knew what to do with it. But I will no longer be intimidated…I’m done with flavorless meat. Now, will someone kindly point me in the direction of the nearest market that sells game?
