Smoked Wild Duck

Wild duck is a wonderful treat at this time of year with the hunting season in full swing and there are few better ways to cook it than in the smoker. These beautiful birds are also suitable for grilling and roasting and the breasts can be skillet fried for a real juicy plate.

Where the great Central and Mississippi flyways come to and end in the northern Gulf regions of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, it is common for many otherwise fine recipes, to call for wild ducks to be soaked overnight in the refrigerator to "remove any strong game flavor". I can scarcely imagine why anybody in their right mind would treat beautifully flavored wild duck in this way and I can honestly recommend that you give it a try without soaking. I don't think you will be disappointed with the result.

The plate above is two kinds of duck, roasted blue winged teal and skillet fried mallard breast, served with red rice dressing made with chorizo sausage and steamed okra. I liked the idea of the two different types of duck cooked two different ways and served on the same plate, so I couldn't resist giving it a try. Glad I did because it was delicious.

So what became of the smoked duck? I had run out of the wood chunks that I needed and the store would have been closed by the time I got there, so I improvised with this dish. The hot smoky pimenton and the "chaurice" gave the rice flavors reminiscent of both Georgia and Louisiana and was the perfect compliment to the slightly sweet duck meat.

Here are the basic ingredients I used for my wild duck feast. The Trinity of onion, bell pepper and celery, a few serrano chili's, chorizo, smoked paprika (pimenton), medium grain paella rice and some Crystal hot sauce, sea salt and black pepper.

For those of you who don't hunt, the larger duck is the mallard and that tasty looking little guy is the blue winged teal. I seasoned and roasted the teal whole with the mallard legs thrown in for good measure. I cut up the duck, roasted the carcass and used it to make some stock for the rice. I always like to use a game stock based on whatever it is I'm making at the time. This will give a real depth of flavor to your cooking and well worth the little extra effort. To make this simple stock, saute onion, celery and bell pepper. Add the duck carcass and any trimings, top up with boiling water. Bring back to the boil then turn down the heat, season and leave the duck to simmer for about an hour.

Trimming and cutting up the duck couldn't be easier, but a couple of tips which might help you before I go on.

Kinda goes without saying, but always use a very sharp knife. It is always safer because you don't need to apply so much pressure with a very sharp knife and so the danger of slipping is greatly reduced. It also helps if the birds are very cold or better still, even partially frozen. Not only are things less slippery this way, it's easier to work the meat from the bones without tearing.

In a large skillet, soften the Trinity for 20 minutes or so over a medium low heat. Add the chorizo sausage, pimenton and chili's and cook until the juices start to flow and color the vegetables. Add the rice and stir to coat the grains with all that aromatic oil and flavor. Next add a can of chopped tomatoes and stir those in before adding the hot duck stock. Season with salt and freshly milled red and black pepper.

I added some whole okra to steam on top of the rice, but you don't have to. The finished dish could equally be served with corn on the cob or fresh green peas - it's entirely up to you.

With all the ingredients in the skillet, it should look something like the picture on the right here. I never seem to have a problem cooking this uncovered, but you might prefer to cover the skillet at this point. The imortant thing though is not to do too much in the way of stirring.

The reason for the lack of stirring is simple. The idea is to develop a crust on the bottom of the finished rice. There is a special sort of rice nirvana where this crust is golden and crunchy, not blackened and it's not real easy to achieve. Sometimes it happens and sometimes not, but you have to give it your best shot.

When the rice is done, cover it and keep warm while you fry the duck breasts, starting them off skin side down as this will help them retain a better shape.

By all means cook them all the way through, but give it a try and cook them like these, a little on the pink side for the very best flavor, texture and juiciness. Don't forget to rest these for a few minutes once cooked to your liking.

This really is a dish with flavors from the Low Country of Georgia and South Carlolina or the Bayous of Cajun country and a great way to serve wild duck. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Redneck Greg

Pot Roast Pheasant

As many of you know already, I have spent a lot of time in England over the past few years.It frequently feels like far too much time to me, but there have been some good things to come out of it, particularly when it comes to my passion for cooking and good food.

Perhaps surprisingly to some, England is a great place for feeding my passion for food. Traditional English cooking has undergone a true renaissance and can be as good, if not better than any you will find in France, Italy or Spain. Please consider making comments on this point, because I know some of you will strongly disagree with this statement and I would love to read your thoughts on the subject. You know who you are, my dear friends, expatriot Americans and fellow Twitterers cooking up a storm over there in Europe. And hey, guys, before any of you feels the need to point out, Paul was having a bad day; I did not split the skins on the pheasants you see here in the roasting pan just before they went into the oven!

I love and look forward to the pheasant hunting season, especially if I happen to be in England where the season begins October 1st each year and runs through to the end of January, but generally the comments I make here will apply to similar feathered game back home.

In England it is much easier to come by a plentiful supply of really great new season birds than in the States. Independent butcher shops are much more common than they are back home and growing number of them are licensed "Game Dealers", which allows them to sell direct to the public based on laws dating back to 1830. That sounds pretty darned good to me. Imagine how awesome that would be back home!

The pheasant is a great sporting game bird that also happens to be very good eating. It is versatile and flavorful and there are many ways to prepare and cook it through the season. I shall give you just a few of my favorites  over the next couple of days or so, but I want to start out with a simple pot roast which is great if you are using older birds.

Folks over here would usually select the classic brace of a cock and a hen bird for this and other pheasant dishes. The larger cock bird has a flavorful but coarser meat which is often drier than the juicy, finer texture of the hen bird. Don't be put off by that and overlook the cock bird. The legs of the cock pheasant are larger than those of the hen and deeply flavored. This pot roast is so beautifully simple and a real treat on a cold winter day.

Take a classic brace of pheasant. Rinse and remove any remaining downy feathers and dry inside and out with paper towel. Heat a large skillet, add a generous chunk of butter and lightly brown each bird taking care not to overheat the pan and burn the butter. Set the birds aside until they are sufficiently cool to handle, then season liberally with salt and freshly ground black pepper, both inside and out. Take a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme, scrunch it up and stuff it into the cavity. Spread more softened butter over the breasts and then optionally, lay over strips of smoked bacon.

In the picture above you can tell I was in a hurry. I didn't brown the birds or spread butter and bacon over them, but since I didn't have any bacon anyway, I guess I had no option. Lucky for me these were young birds so they didn't dry out so much during cooking.

Lay the prepared birds on a bed of vegetables. In this case I used trimmed celery hearts, small whole onions and thickly sliced carrots. A half bottle of Italian pinot grigio or a light game stock around the birds, a snug fitting lid and they are ready for the oven. About an hour at 375 to 400 degrees should be about right, by which time the birds will be just nicely cooked and the vegetables will still retain a nice bite. If you are using really chunky roots you can part cook them in the roasting dish for about half an hour before adding the pheasants. Once the dish is done to your liking, strain off the cooking liquid into a saucepan, bring up to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer to reduce slightly.

Meanwhile, remove the legs and breasts from the birds and slice the breast meat separately. Cover and keep warm for a few minutes while you finish the sauce.

To finish the sauce either stir in a half cup of heavy cream as I did, or give your sauce a nice gloss with a few small chunks of ice cold butter whisked in. Adjust the seasoning if need be and you're ready to serve the slices of pheasant, the legs and the cooked vegetables with nice creamy, roasted garlic, mashed potatoes and the deliciously tasty sauce.

Of course the choice of vegetables for this dish is a matter of personal taste, but hearty seasonal roots are ideal at this time of year

Serves 4 or 2 very hungry and greedy folks like me.

Redneck Greg

Cooking Shrimp

Well not exactly cooking shrimp, but fishing for them.

The Gulf Coast shrimpers of Bayou la Batre, Alabama face a bleak and uncertain future.

Imported, farm raised shrimp are the real problem here, nothing to do with over fishing or environmental issues. Take a look at the fresh fish counter in your local Publix or Waly World. It's been a long time since I've seen locally caught shrimp. Fresh farmed shrimp from Vietnam, China or Mexico is what you get. Check out the frozen shrimp; exactly the same deal.

This imported farmed shrimp is relatively cheap, almost inevitably subsidized in some way and very plentiful. As Americans have cut their budgets, demand for shrimp has taken a dive and the price has continued to fall. These guys are having to land bigger and bigger catches of shrimp just to make ends meet. It really doesn't look like they're going to survive for much longer, particularly when the price of fuel looks set to rise again as the economy recovers. As you can imagine it will soon no longer be viable to put to sea and that really is the death knell for the shrimp fishing industry not only in Alabama, but also for the rest of the warm water fleets of the South.You can also imagine that the much larger catches that these guys need to stay afloat are going to have a big impact on sustainability of the rich fisheries of the Gulf. So with falling demand, falling prices and higher costs the whole thing is a mess.

Of course these guys are trying every which way they can to promote Gulf caught shrimp and their efforts are centred inevitably on quality. There is no doubt in my mind that locally caught wild shrimp are the vastly superior product in every way, but the supermarket and restaurant buyers are not convinced or ready to go out on a limb for the shrimpers of the Alabama Gulf coast. In fact the opposite is true and they are resisting shrimp fishing industry efforts to lobby for a national bill that will require restaurants at least to tell their customers where their seafood comes from. There's a lot riding on a state law which comes into effect January 2010 that requires this, but beyond that boats will continue to be laid up.

I wish I could hold out more hope that this will be effective, but I do at least have some hope left. Although I wonder if American consumers are ready and willing to pay a premium on the grounds of origin or protection of the domestic fishing industry, I sincerely believe that some of them are. And what about quality? It's way subjective, a matter of taste. Even with the help of state law I wonder if consumers are even going to be offered the choice of domestic wild shrimp in their local Red Lobster or whatever? I think, sadly not, at least any time soon.

But what the Hell, I want to give the biggest shout out in the South for wild locally caught shrimp and seafood. These are fantastic products. Please, please buy them whenever you get the opportunity. Treat yourselves to the luxury of wild shrimp. Heat up your skillets and grills and set about making the best jambalayas, gumbos, shrimp boils and shrimp bogs that are so much a part of our rich food heritage. I can't think of a better way to spend time at the weekend than cooking up a storm with grilled shrimp, fried shrimp, blackened shrimp, jerked shrimp, shrimp in every way imaginable. Keep on asking for local wild shrimp at the shacks and independent restaurants. In fact ask for them at the chains. Even when you know there is no chance that this choice is available your voice should be heard and hopefully in time, listened to.

To the fishing communities of the South I say use every means at your disposal, including the power of the internet to promote your products and your industry, to explore new ways to tap into the demand, to communicate in every way, directly to your consumers because they are ultimately your only hope for the future.

Cooking Wild Game

Just in case anybody noticed, there isn't really much to see here right now.

Some time ago I decided to revive the old place, but it soon became clear that a fresh start would be easier if I removed some of the old articles that seemed to me, no longer relevant.

I figured that few folks were interested in reading my rants on politics and since I pretty much lost interest in the subject, at least publicly, I removed them. Well you know how it is when you start to make cuts into stuff you're no longer happy with? I kept right on going and eventually decided to take down the whole darned thing.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to be firing up the smoker and the old hunters kitchen will be steaming again. I'll be cooking up a storm with wild game recipes, cajun and Southern classics and sharing some thoughts about the rich food heritage we all share.

I'll be dishing up some old favorites like smoked wild duck, brunswick stew, deep fried squirrel with biscuits and gravy. There will be recipes for Savannah red rice, shrimp bogs, catfish, gumbos and jambalayas. I'll be grilling, smoking and barbecueing, making rubs, sauces and salsas. It's going to be fun and there's a little taster for you at the bottom of the current home page.

Regular readers already know my passion for the great outdoors and I'll be keeping you all updated with tales from the Indian River, the fishing, the wildlife and the seasons. Who knows, I might even catch some fish over the coming winter months.

I just want to say thanks to all you folks who have commented here over the past couple of years. I'm looking forward to hearing from you all again soon.

Redneck Greg

Indian River Days

The Captain took this shot of yours truly, Redneck Greg, fishing a
perfect late afternoon on the Indian River flats outside the entrance
to Manatee Cove. I can't think of many places in the world that I would
rather be. I didn't catch any fish on this particular October
afternoon, but that never matters to me. Being there in this wonderful
place is what's important. It keeps me coming back time and again,
whatever the weather, whatever the time of year. I love the fall on the Indian River. Early morning or evening fishing out on the flats with the kayak brings its own special tranquility broken only by the unique sounds of the lagoon. The sound of raindrops falling on the water out here is really quite strange. Interspersed with moments of near silence, I hear the rush of bait-fish shoals breaking surface in a desperate attempt to escape the hungry attention of feeding redfish, the manatees breaking surface to take a breath, or the dolphins working together to shepherd hundreds of mullet before exploding into them to feed.

I hope never to forget that the lagoon is a wild place, a place to be aware of the creatures that dwell in and around its waters and a place that needs to be treated with respect and sensitivity. It is their home and environment, not mine.

At the top of the food chain are the alligators which inhabit the margins, mangroves and swamp areas where fresh, brackish and salt water are all mixed together in close proximity and there are inevitable crossover habitats for wildlife. Although these prehistoric creatures tend to keep their distance from fishermen, slipping from sight when they see you approaching, they seem to have no fear of humans so I always stay far enough away to avoid provoking them. At certain times of the year they can be particularly aggressive if approached. A couple of days before this shot was taken we came across a very large bull gator in the Rinker Canal. It saw us paddling towards it as we made for the river and it slipped silently under the surface before we got within 75 yards. We did not hang around to take pictures of that bad boy. We paddled as far to the opposite side of the canal, as far away from where we perceived that big ol gator MIGHT be and out into the Indian River.

There have always been sharks in the lagoon and although I have never heard of an attack on wading fishermen, it's as well to be aware of their presence and they can show up almost anywhere. The little guys are never a problem, but adult bull sharks inhabit these waters especially where fresh water rivers and canals empty into the lagoon during breeding season. Bull sharks are an extremely aggressive species in the ocean and are categorized as dangerous. For reasons which I suspect are not well understood, although I need to check into this, their behaviour changes when they arrive in the lagoon, becoming merely curious about wading fishermen, circling around out of sight before moving away. Even so, I would never knowingly try to get up close and personal with one of these guys. The Captain caused a commotion a few days ago while cast netting for bait. I guess the shark was close by taking a look at what was going on and got spooked when an 8ft cast net came hurtling in its direction. Don't know if the shark got scared as it thrashed off into deeper water, but the captain sure as Hell got a fright!!

Hey, but I love this place. Always have, always will. There's no place like it anywhere else in the world and I spend as much time there as I possibly can.

The new kayaks are totally awesome. It's a totally different experience from thundering around the lagoon with 220 roaring horses on the transom and I can honestly say it's one of the best things I've ever bought into.

It's great to be able to avoid the boat ramps. Pretty much anywhere you can get the truck close to water, you can launch the yaks. There are little know trails close by some highly desirable places to fish and you wont need to spend hours paddling to get amongst the reds on some of the most beautiful flats on the Indian River. Right now I don't feel inclined to shout too loud about where - part of the fun is doing your own prospecting and there are plenty of resources out there to help you find these out of the way places.

I like to fish on weekdays whenever I can, simply because I like the peace and solitude. Also when there is less pressure and boating activity it often follows that the fishing improves greatly, both very early in the morning and the evening.

The Indian River Lagoon is one of the finest game fisheries in the United States. The scenery and wildlife are truly awesome and I have to take my hat off to all those folks who work so hard to protect and conserve this unique environment so that we can all enjoy it today and for years to come. So go get a yak, do the research and get out on the river and fish every out of the way place you can find. You will be richly rewarded in every way.

Savannah, Red Rice, Doves and Other Places

Sweet Home Savannah. Well not quite, but it seemd like an appropriate thing to say.

I was looking at the pics of things I have cooked this past summer and when I saw this it made me think about The South and about rice and about Georgia. Savannah red rice has to be one of the great classic dishes and a great one to share with friends for almost any occasion. Served with kabobs of dove breast and sweet bell peppers, seasoned with pimenton as they do in Spain and then cooked over a charcoal and pecan wood fire is heaven on earth. Savannah going back to its culinary roots. I am so looking forward to some good Southern cooking when I get home.