My Top Five Recipes

Hunting and fishing is the sport, but the reward is having the opportunity to dine on fresh game and fish.  Low in fat and cholesterol and high in protein, this is the healthiest form of meat you can dine on.  With the joy of preparation, we have many friends and family that enjoy dining on what is harvested.

Game takes a little longer to prepare as the meat is very dense.  With some of the meats, you can have a gamey flavor.  Marinating game for long periods of time is how we obtain tenderness and lose some of the gamey taste that goes along with some of the deer and other hoofed animals harvested. I have friends that soak deer in milk for several hours.  I have never tried it, but they claim all the strong taste is removed.

The birds we gather, whether it is upland game, turkeys or waterfowl, have a tendency for a little dryness.  Here again, taking some extra steps will insure the meat is moist.  To obtain this extra moisture, we brine the birds or breasts in a brine solution following package directions or for a couple of hours.

I just returned from a Caribou hunt in the northern most reaches of Manitoba.  Waiting for my arrival were many friends and neighbors. All were waiting patiently with their knife and fork in hand.  Let the feasting begin. 

Hi Mountain Game Bird or Poultry Brine Mix

This is the product we use to brine our birds. 

Fried Walleye Recipe

 This recipe comes from Ted in Webster, SD.  Ted is a walleye connoisseur, and he describes himself as a hard core walleye fisherman.  I don’t know what that means, but his recipe is excellent.

Ingredients:

2-4 walleye filets

2-4 cups of Italian bread crumbs

½ to 1 tablespoonful of Italian seasonings

½ to 1 tablespoonful of Lawry’s Seasoning Salt

Sprinkle a little pepper

Add a little garlic (this is optional and not in Ted’s recipe)

1 cup of flour

2 eggs whipped and set aside

Cooking pan with vegetable oil or the oil of your choice

Directions:

1.  Toss the walleye fillets into the flour and coat both sides

2.  Dip the fillets in the whipped egg

3.  Add bread crumb mixture in a gallon zip lock bag with the seasonings and shake until coated

4.  Cook in well heated oil about 3 minutes to a side and the coating lightly browned

5.  Serve with a lemon wedge and sauce of your choice

Gourmet Duck Breast

This recipe comes from my good friend and hunting companion John.  John comes from West Virginia and he claims when he was born, his parents put him in a sack with a bunch of cats and threw them in a river.  But John swam out and here he is today hunting with me with his dog, Junior. 

 

Ingredients:

4-6 duck breasts

3 oz dried beef

4 to 6 slices of bacon

1 can cream of mushroom soup

4 oz can of mushrooms, sliced and drained

8 oz sour cream

Directions:

1.  Wrap each duck breast with a slice of dried beef and a slice of bacon, secure with toothpick

2.  Bake uncovered at 350 for 45 minutes

3.  Remove from oven and drain liquid

4.  In separate bowl, mix soup, sour cream and mushrooms, pour over duck breasts

5.  Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

6. Serve over white or wild rice

Breast of Wild Turkey Surprise

  There are so many great wild turkey recipes out there it is hard to pick one to post.  But I have used this several times and it is excellent.  It goes great with a glass of Piesporter wine.

Ingredients:

½ of a whole wild turkey breast

1 10 ounce can condensed cream of chicken soup

1 8 ounce container of sour cream

1 roll round buttery crackers

2 tablespoonfuls butter, melted

small package brining salt

1 bottle Piesporter Wine (Some of you might need two bottles)

Directions:

1. Soak turkey breast in brining salt for 3-4 hours

2. Poach turkey in enough water to cover until no longer pink inside, remove from pan and cut into cubes

3. Combine chicken soup with sour cream in a medium bowl, mix well

4. Place cubed turkey in a glass casserole dish

5. Pour sour cream and soup mixture on top

6. Crumble crackers on top of mixture and pour melted butter on top.

7. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until golden on top.

8. Sit down and drink a glass of Piesporter Wine

9. Serve and enjoy

Roast Pheasant in Irish Cream Sauce

This recipe came from my good friend Ron and Amy in Colorado.  While they do not hunt or fish, they really enjoy wild game dishes.  When they come to visit they always want pheasant. A Piesporter   Wine goes well with this excellent dish.

Ingredients:

1-2 Pheasants

1 tsp. salt, ¼ tsp pepper, 1 bay leaf all per bird

3 celery stalks

1/3 cup melted butter

6 slices of bacon

1 medium onion

1 (3 oz) can mushrooms per bird

1 chicken bouillon cube per bird

½ cup Irish Cream Whiskey per bird

One half cup cream or half and half per bird

Seedless Grapes

Wild Rice

Directions:

1.  Sprinkle salt and pepper on pheasant

2.  Put onion, mushrooms & celery in bird cavity

3.  Place breast side down on a rack in a roasting pan.

4.  Mix onion, mushrooms and reconstituted bouillon cube together and pour into bottom of pan.

5.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes per pound or until bird is tender

6. 20 minutes before the bird is done, turn breast side up and cover with melted butter and bacon.

7. After done make sauce by pouring off fat, blend residue with vegetables and cook on high adding cream and Irish cream for a sauce.  Mix in the grapes and serve with wild rice.

Be sure to enjoy some Piesporter Wine with this dish. 

Slow Cooker Elk

This is my wife's recipe for Elk.  I have saved my favorite for the last one.  You can substitute deer, buffalo or beef for elk if you did not make it out to harvest one this year.  We served the recipe with two other meats at Christmas and it was totally consumed and people wanted more. 

Ingredients

 1 (4-5) pound elk rump roast (substitute deer, venison or beef)

1 (1-oz) Pkg dry onion soup mix

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves

2 (10.5 oz) cans condensed beef broth

2 (12 oz ) cans of beer (If you have Tusker Beer available, I recommend it)

2 garlic cloves minced

Directions

1. Place roast in 3.5 to 4 quart Slow Cooker

2. In Medium bowl, combine all ingredients except one can of beer.

3. Mix well and pour over roast

4. Cover and cook on low setting for 8 to 10 hours. 

5. Drink the second can of beer. You have earned it.

Good hunting, good fishing, and good luck.  Hank

 

The Temple of Tigers

One of the highlights of our trip to India several years ago was a visit to the Ranthamborne Tiger Preserve in Northwest India.  The former hunting preserve of the Maharajas is thousands of acres and we were lucky in having the opportunity to see a Bengal Tiger in the wilds. 

Since that trip, I received an e-mail that provides a very interesting and unusual situation in Thailand.

In 1999 the inhabitants of a little village of Kanchanahuri, Thailand, found in the forest two baby injured tigers.  Their parents had been killed by poachers.  Not knowing what to do with the baby tigers, they were taken to the Bhuddist temple Wat Pha Luang.  There they were housed and cared for by the monks.

Since the original two were taken to the temple, other baby tigers have been taken to the monks and raised.

The tigers are tame and used to eating only cooked meat in order to avoid developing a taste for blood.  They are treated like members of the temple family.

The monks consider their monastery as a communal place and a sanctuary for animals and preservation center.

Wouldn't it be exciting to be able to touch one of these magnificent creatures. That snarl would make me nervous.

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Good Hunting, good fishing, and good luck.  Hank

http://www.outdoorswithhank.com/

Oh My Goodness

 In the morning be first up, and in the evening last to go to bed, for they that sleep catch no fish.

Pumped is hardly the word for it.  The forecast was for winds northerly at 5 to 10  mph but with only a 20% chance of a rain shower late in the morning or early afternoon.  My wife, Pam, and I were both excited about the promise of getting into some really fast action as I experienced on a previous trip.  Opitz is the lake to pound if this type of action is what you are looking for.  To catch your minimum limit of walleye that you can keep, you will have to catch a lot of 13 inch to 14.5 inch to score one.  Plus, you are only allowed to take two over 15 inches out for the day.  Still, you can have a lot of fun and you are constantly catching fish.

The forecast and the reality did not match up.  It was a cloudless morning and not a breath of wind at all.   Still we checked in at Sportsman's Cove to see what they recommended.  We had talked about going south to Swan, but the people at the bait shop said that a no wind condition was not good for Swan.  Antelope Lake was just to the south and fish had been caught in a windy or a no wind condition, but their information was not positive.  They also said that Waubay would not be a good choice.  Pickerel Lake had too many pleasure boating tourists, Lynn was not good in a no wind condition, and Opitz was our best choice.  We just wanted options, and there were not any.

The lake looks like a mirror

Bitter to the east was another option, so we decided to hit Opitz first, see how we could do, then go to Bitter in the late afternoon.  Our goal was to fish at least four lakes on this trip.  We had fished Waubay yesterday.  It would be Optiz this AM with Bitter in the later afternoon and evening.  Then the next morning we would be hitting it to either Swan or Antelope.  Where else can you go that you have so many options?

The algae came into full bloom.  That is a clump of algae on the water.

On arrival, the lake was flat as a pancake and there was not a cloud in the sky.  The lake was showing a lot of algae and it looked like it was in full bloom.  This would not affect the fishing, but just make a mess in and on the boat.  I noticed the other boats were up against the shore line or in the trees that surrounded the lake.  Sitting and watching through the field glasses, I saw no one catching any fish.

I repeated the same process as done two weeks ago, but this time the kicker motor would be used to move the boat around.  Out in the middle of the lake, walleye were picked up, but they were all less than the 15 inch minimum.

It is a pretty lake.  Notice we are starting to get some clouds.

Moving through the narrows that opened up to another larger body of water, I noticed the boats were in the trees or just outside the trees and working jigs.  Working my way over to a standing group of trees, small walleye were picked up, but none for the live well.

Along the tree line, small white bass were picked up, but none worth keeping.  Closer into the trees, we each picked up small walleye again, but these were just under the required minimum.  Changing spinners, trying different colors, using jigs, trying different colors, did not make any difference.  We just did not catch a fish worth boating.  This was the same thing that had happened to me two weeks ago on this lake.

We caught the usual small fish along the tree line.

Periodically we noticed some clouds had formed and they were the cumulus type.  That was nice because we were able to get out of the sun.  Then it became very black to our north and as we watched, it appeared the black clouds were moving to the east and we were safe.  Not so.

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My wife wears Frogg Toggs with a Jacket and a Pant.  Click on the link above or the picture to buy from Bass Pro.

It began to rain.  We were caught in a torrential downpour with lightening all around.  Scrambling to get our rain suits on that made little difference, we were already soaked to the gills.  The boat was slowly motored over to a high bank where would not be sticking up above the level of the lake and be hit by lightening.  Now the wind came up and there was driving rain, wind and lightning.  All this seemed to go on for about 30 minutes.

Through the whole experience we saw a boat with the fisherman sitting on the bow running his electric trolling motor and continuing to fish.  We soon lost sight of him, but as we headed back to shore and the boat dock, we passed him again.  He was still fishing in the rain.  He had no suit on, and only shorts, a billed hat and a T shirt without sleeves.  He gave us a big wave.  We could see a head sticking up from the bottom of the boat, and later found out it was his wife.  She had gotten her rain suit on, and was weathering out the storm in the safety of the bottom of the boat.

I have never seen anyone sit out in a thunder and lightning storm and keep fishing.  He has used up one of his nine lives.

Soaking wet, we quit.  Next morning half dried out, we went home.  It happens.

I just got back from a 5 day Caribou hunt in northern Manitoba.  Next week, we start the report on the action. 

Good fishing, good hunting, and good luck.  Hank