Game Cookery, New Orleans Style!
By John DeMers and Rhonda Findley
From Bucktown to Uptown, New Orleans on down the Bayou, to Shreveport and Monroe in the far north, no self-respecting Louisiana man or woman would be caught unarmed. A shotgun and hunting license seem to go hand in hand with Grandma's closely guarded gumbo recipe. Read more in this article from New Orleans Gourmet!
Right from the backyard
Some of the best cooking techniques anywhere for duck, venison, rabbit, squirrel and of course, alligator come from the people of Louisiana. It's all because Louisiana's dinner table is cultivated in the backyard. Literally.
Hunting is an integral part of Louisiana's heritage. The abundance of game roaming the land was certainly the single most important ingredient that gave early Creole and Cajun settlers the ability to live and prosper. Early settlers learned from the Native Americans how to fricassee squirrel, adding corn and other local ingredients and thus giving birth to a fragrant stew. Early explorers of both French and Spanish descent noted that at times the sky was black with the enormous flocks of ducks flying overhead. While most visitors to Louisiana are looking for a fine seafood gumbo, they are more likely to learn that duck gets equal billing.
Some of the best cooking techniques anywhere for duck, venison, rabbit, squirrel and of course, alligator come from the people of Louisiana. It's all because Louisiana's dinner table is cultivated in the backyard. Literally.
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Hunting in Louisiana is a ritual. Even a rite of passage. In Louisiana, we learn to mount a shotgun at an early age, aiming to conquer the paradise that is our woods, marsh and swamp. "Sportsman's Paradise" gives birth to culinary paradise. And this culinary paradise attracts throngs of visitors hoping to savor
Chef Paul Prudhomme's rabbit with Creole mustard crème sauce or Chef Emeril Lagasse's glazed duck.
Hunting leases are passed down from generation to generation, although modern times have given us well-appointed camp compounds with gourmet chefs and heated duck blinds. And now camouflage is cool, finding a new place in the fashion world. Wild game hunting, cooking and eating in Louisiana has always been in fashion.
Wild duck: In this part of the country, shooting ducks is even more popular than eating them -- though nearly every duck hunter worth his camouflage imagines himself a fine duck cooker as well. There are quite a few ducks that fly through here, as ducks generally take to water like, well, ducks -- and there's so much water. A series of duck seasons stretches through the chilly-weather months, making for hunters who tend to come home looking frozen but hopefully with their limit of ducks. Whiskey has been known to help with the cold, but not necessarily with the aim.
Ducks use their flying muscles virtually round the clock, those making their uncooked meat reddish in color, though this varies a bit with the wetlands greenery they tend to eat. Roast duck is always a delicacy, with many local cooks using a glaze based on honey. Many cooks also love the deboned breasts, which can be simply seasoned with salt, pepper and/or Creole seasoning and quickly seared in a sauté pan.
Once your duck breast reaches its desired degree of doneness (chefs, of course, love their duck breast quite rare), remove the meat and deglaze with a few splashes of cognac or other brandy. This simple procedure gives you a sauce that picks up all the rich, complex and totally irresistible browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
Of course, duck also has a beloved place among Gulf Coast classics with Creole and Cajun ancestry, from duck gumbo (for a real treat, prepare your favorite gumbo using duck meat that's been smoked) to duck sauce piquant. These darkly sauced, deeply rouxed dishes are perfect settings for the flavorful meat of wild duck.
Wild quail: Our area's love of wild quail went on so long that somebody had the idea of raising them, so these days quail are commonly available in that form in even the least gourmet of grocery stores. The type of quail known as the bobwhite (the name a guess at what it seems to be saying in its call) is the most popular form in the Deep South. Making for some confusion, though, it the fact that most Southerners know this bobwhite as a "partridge" -- with no reference implied to the ever-happy, ever-musical Partridge Family.
A challenge to both the hunter and the cook, quail are quite small, weighing between 5 and 10 ounces. This means they require a bit more care than larger birds when it comes to cleaning, deboning, stuffing and anything else you have in mind. Though quails do have breast meat, they are most appreciated for their juicy and succulent dark meat.
If you're buying farm-raised quail to sub for the quail you didn’t shoot, the birds are often sold four to a package, with probably two birds needed per person. You can find quail in this form whole, semi boneless and even smoked. As with duck, a host of regional presentations are terrific, gumbo and sauce piquant among the better ideas.
Roasting is an especially good trick, as the meat holds up well and perfectly balances with any stuffing involving wild rice. Flavored vinegars, such as blueberry or raspberry, can form the basis of sauces when used to deglaze the roasting pan.
Dove: Though a traditional symbol of peace, dove know little of that commodity whenever they are in season. Dove hunting is perceived as great sport, since the birds are small and fast. Dove and pigeon are members of the same family, though doves are generally smaller with longer tails. The young of both are called squab, an especially appreciated delicacy. For hunters, the mourning dove is the favorite, its name a reference to its plaintive cry. They are quite widespread.
Dove of any age feature dark and juicy meat, with one or two birds recommended per person. As they're so small, grilling is an option (one that gets tastier with marination in either Creole seasonings or perhaps in a basting sauce touched with balsamic vinegar). Of course, they are excellent roasted (preferably wrapped in bacon for both flavor and moisture), braised and broiled.
Wild boar and other pigs: Boars are male pigs, and they are all descendants of Old World swine in Eurasia and Africa. They were introduced into the New World by Spanish explorers and friars in the 15th and 16th centuries. For instance, the razorbacks of neighboring Arkansas are thought to be descendants of pigs driven there from Florida by Spain's Hernando de Soto way back in 1539.
These days, wild pigs (some weighing upwards of 300 pounds) live in a wide range of locations, including steamy swamps, and they live on a catch-as-catch-can diet of crawfish, nuts, fruits, ground-nesting birds, tubers and roots. As wild boars have a disagreeable taste during mating season, the market preference generally runs to farm-raised -- or else to sows and piglets. The farm-raised have reached a high degree of popularity with chefs, due to their free-range living conditions on most farms and the absence of hormones, steroids and antibiotics.
Boar is sold is a host of different cuts, with 3 to 6 ounces of meat per person. Popular cuts include the leg, shoulder, tenderloin, rack, saddle, chop and spareribs. Generally, wild boar can be cooked according to any recipe for domestic pork. As with pork, be sure to cook it to 170 degrees internally.
Wild deer: Venison is the word used to describe the meat of wild deer, as well as the meat of elk, pronghorns, moose and caribou. There are two types of deer in the United States -- mule and white tailed -- with the latter being by far the most abundant in these parts.
Whitetails are recognizable for their tails, especially when they sense danger, and weigh as little as 75 to as many as 300 pounds. Going back a couple of centuries, deer were essential to the survival of virtually every wildness outpost, with the animals moving back each time civilization took a giant step forward. They have prospered well, considered, from the time they kept whole tribes of Native Americans alive to today, when they provide sport and meat for lots of seasonal hunters.
Deer can live by foraging on wild grasses, shrubs and fruits, but they enjoy the forbidden foray into people's gardens. Venison is extremely low in fat. Besides the nice ring that will have to people eternally watching their weight, that fact mandates fast, high-heat cooking for the more tender cuts (so they don't dry out) and long, slow cooking for the tougher cuts. Venison chili and venison stew are perfect examples of how we treat the more common tougher pieces.
Alligator: The ever-intimidating gator has gone from super-protected to fair game in season, with all the proper permits of course. Though alligators are also being farm-raised these days, there continues the tradition of hunting the wild ones in the swamp that puts hunters in touch with something even more primal than most hunting experiences.
When dealing with wild alligators, those parts that get the most muscle use (the legs and, not surprisingly, sections of meat attached to the powerful jaws) are reddish. These tend to be substituted for turtle meat (in fact, some years ago, when the green turtle was protected, many restaurants switched from turtle soup to alligator soup without changing any other ingredient in their recipe) or ground up for sausages and fritters. The pure white meat of the sirloin is the most tender cut, followed by the slightly pink tenderloin. These pieces can be cooked less dramatically, showcasing well seasoned with salt, pepper or Creole seasoning and sautéed in butter or olive oil.
Rabbit: Rabbits are considered America's most important small game animal -- specifically because they breed like, well, rabbits. With a gestation period of only 32 days (compared to the familiar human nine months), it's fairly easy for rabbits to remain among the surviving and even prospering members of our nearby wilderness. The most common are cottontails, the most widely hunted small game east of the Rockies.
Wild rabbits have a flavorful white meat, with their increasingly farm-raised kin showing off the same qualities with even more meat in relation to bone. Wild or farm-raised, rabbit can be substituted for any recipe written for chicken. Rabbit sauce piquant is a regional favorite, a Deep South spin on the wine-blessed rabbit stews enjoyed in the rustic French countryside. Rabbits can indeed be cooked like chicken: with the smaller fryers roasted or grilled, the older roasters braised, the boned saddles stuffed and grilled. In recent years, rabbit tenderloin has become a restaurant hit lightly floured, pan sautéed and served with a sauce built around pungent Creole mustard.
Squirrel: Yes, like deer and rabbit, squirrel has the emotional disadvantage of having been a loveable cartoon character. That fact, however, doesn't keep local hunters from being drawn to the sport of shooting them and the pleasures derived from cooking them.
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About this article: This article originally appeared in New Orleans Gourmet Magazine.
