I also enjoy the endorphin rush of a spicy-hot dish (spicy doesn’t always mean hot… but I’m happy when it does).  Heck, I’m on the “Hall of Flame” at least twice at My Thai restaurant in Fremont, a place so well known for their heat that Mythbusters did an episode there.  I like it to the point of masochism, I suppose, although my favorite is when the heat stops just shy of destroying my tastebuds.  Unfortunately, there aren’t many restaurants that can toe that line without crossing over, and once the tastebuds are gone, it’s a waste of calories and money. 

I couldn’t begin to name all of the various hot sauces I’ve tried over the years.  At one of my favorite restaurants (sadly gone now) in Boca Raton, FL, there was a wall of hot sauces from all over the world with an emphasis on the Caribbean.  There’s no better proving ground for hot sauce than a nice bowl of conch chowder and a side of fritters, and I spent many a post-dive afternoon there, sipping beer and trying different sauces.  Down in Gilroy, CA, there’s a tourist shop that specializes in garlic (another favorite spice).  But they also have a pretty wide selection of hot sauce, and I’ve sampled liberally from their offerings as well. 

Many of my friends know of my predilection for heat, and I’ve been the recipient over the years of many different bottles of hot sauce.  Sometimes it’s like a test or a joke, to see if I can stand it, and other times it’s a sincere gift of a flavorful-yet-spicy condiment that they know I’ll enjoy.  A bottle of Mad Dog 357 sauce I received a year or so ago falls into that former category, and is the catalyst for this post.  Just because I know it’s too hot to eat, doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try to find a way to eat it.

I had a couple of skinless duck breasts in the freezer from my one trip to the marsh this year, so I pulled out a couple of packages.  One contained two spoonies, and the other held the breasts of a brace of gadwalls.  Spoonies can sometimes be a little stronger than the “quality” ducks, and while I’ve never found them inedible (as some people claim), I usually stack the deck by using them in dishes that allow other flavors to “improve” their toothsomeness.  As far as the gadwall, well, in my dining experience they’re just ducks with no particularly outstanding qualities. 

At any rate, I’d been thinking about Thai food, and one of my favorites is red curry with duck.  What I usually find at restaurants is that they’ll use a roast duck, skin and all for this dish.  Since my breasts were skinless, I knew I’d be working at a disadvantage.  That fat really adds a lot of flavor.  But I could live with that.

For a base, I picked up a packet of “Taste of Thai” red curry paste.  I suppose I could make my own, but these packets really simplify things.  I make no claims to culinary greatness.  Besides, this brand of curry paste is pretty danged good.  Other canned ingredients were coconut milk, bamboo shoots, and baby corn.  The rest of the ingredients would be fresh, and included:

• Half a large, sweet onion (chopped)
• About half a pineapple (cubed)
• Oyster mushrooms (probably about four to six ounces)
• Basil (The store was out of fresh basil, so I had to use dried.  Fresh is MUCH better!)
• 357 Magnum Sauce (A drop about the size of a pencil eraser.  More on this in a bit.)

Ingredients I wish I’d included are:

• Red bell pepper (diced)
• Whole tomato (diced)
• A couple of serrano peppers (finely chopped)

With the duck breasts, I simply dusted them with salt, pepper, and onion powder, and then browned them in bacon grease.  I didn’t want them cooked through, since duck is usually best just shy of medium rare (I prefer it more rare… but some don’t).  They’d also cook some more in the final stage of preparation.

Once the breasts were done, I set them aside.  In the same pan, I tossed in the onion, cooked it until it was starting to get clear, and then threw in the oyster mushrooms.  If I’d included bell pepper, I’d have stirred it in with the onion.  I stirred this around for a bit, and then poured in the coconut milk, followed immediately by the curry paste which I mixed in until I had a nice, even, red tint.  On top of this I dropped the hot sauce, and stirred that in as well.

When the sauce began to simmer, I put in the corn, pineapple, bamboo shoots, and basil.  This is where the tomato and serrano pepper should have come in as well.  I stirred this up and let it all simmer for a little while.

At this point I got my first indication that there might be a problem.  I could literally smell the heat coming off of the mixture from the hot sauce.  I knew it would blend and dilute a little as it simmered, but it was pretty strong.  A quick taste confirmed my fear…  this stuff was gonna be HOT!  That’s not a problem if I’m cooking for myself, but Kat doesn’t care so much for the eye-watering heat that I enjoy. 

Once I got the curry going, I put on a pot of jasmine rice.  This takes about 20 minutes to cook, so I set the timer for 20 minutes and left the rice and curry to their business while I had a glass of scotch.  In the last five minutes or so, I dropped the duck breasts into the curry sauce and put the lid back on. 

When the timer went off, I tasted the results.  Tasty, but still very, very hot.  I served it up, and after a sample, Kat immediately heaped another handful of fresh pineapple on hers.  The sugar from the pineapple helps to cut the heat, but I could tell as she ate that it didn’t cut it enough.  For my own part, the heat was near the edge of comfortable. 

To go with the spicy curry, I opened up a bottle of Kirigin Cellars (Gilroy, CA) Malvasia Bianca.  I’d intended to pair this with a rosé, but someone apparently drank it while I was travelling recently.   At any rate, the soft white wine eased the fire, and actually worked pretty well with the flavors.

All in all, it came out pretty good… even without the additional ingredients.  Start to finish, the whole thing took less than an hour to make, which is a plus at the end of a long workday. 

If you wanted to try this yourself, I’d suggest taking great care with the hot sauce or eliminating it altogether.  The 357 Magnum is made from concentrates of a couple of really, really high-heat peppers.  As I saw, a tiny bit goes a really long way.  For the average palate, the addition of the chopped serrano peppers would probably be plenty anyway, and will likely taste better than the bottled sauce as well. 

For now, the 357 Magnum sauce goes on a fairly special mental list with the red warning flag beside it.  But if hot stuff makes you happy, it’s worth checking out!

This probably doesn’t seem all that big a deal, but trust me, this is not my usual reading preference.  I don’t do recipes.  I don’t really care for the language and pomposity of much of the gourmet cooking genre.  I’m an OK cook from time to time, but it’s not something I generally spend my free time reading about.

And then, last spring, I heard about Cooking Wild Magazine.  Even better, they asked me to do a piece for their innagural issue.  Now, unlike Groucho Marx, I was pretty honored that this “club” would have me.  I mean heck, to be featured in a magazine that includes writer/chefs like Scott Leysath and Hank Shaw… and so was born a kind of cool relationship.

I just received the winter issue of Cooking Wild, and flipped it open.  OK, in the interest of full disclosure, I was wondering if they’d included an article I wrote about lead ammunition (they did), but I got sidetracked right out of the gate by a first-person piece on hunting in Africa which was immediately followed by another story about a wild sheep hunt.  Then there was the piece on cooking ducks by the aforementioned Mr. Leysath.  And Hank Shaw wrote about cooking with nettles, which grow like a plague in my honey-hole at the Tejon Ranch.  I probably wouldn’t have read Chef Michael Tuohy’s piece about braising except for the fact that I just cooked a piece of venison, and honestly, it would have benefited from that treatment. 

The point is, I guess, that the magazine has managed to pull together the elements required to get my interest.  There’s hunting stories, wild game meat processing tips, and tasty-sounding food… all couched in pretty good writing.  Who could ask for more?  Well, maybe that’s pushing it, but the magazine is definitely worth a read.   Check it out if you get half a chance.

Personally, I’m happy to see this movement and honestly hope it’s more than just another food fad.  It’s given a new life to hunting, bringing a new perspective on our sport and adding some very articulate voices to the community. 

At any rate, a hunting client and friend sent me a note yesterday morning that included a link to the New York Times Sustainable Eating section, and James Gorman’s latest column.  Gorman shines a light on a potential new offshoot of the locavore movement.  “Invasivores” build a menu from invasive species, both vegetable and animal. 

The column was partially in jest, and partially serious… my favorite kind of column… and points to the wide variety of invasive species which can be converted to the table.  He starts out with a piece about the diving clubs in Florida and their lionfish derby. 

For those who don’t know, the lionfish, native to the south Pacific, has shown up in great numbers along the reefs from the Caribbean to North Carolina.  It’s an aggressive, invasive species with seriously negative implications to native reef fish.  It’s also extremely venomous, and has few natural predators… especially in its new environment. At first, the divers were just going to collect and eradicate as many of the fish as they could find.  However, someone came up with the idea of having local chefs find ways to cook the spiny little bastards, and the event took on a whole new life.

A similar derby is held up in the Great Lakes states that have recently been impacted by the Asian (flying) carp.  Whether or not the derbies make a significant impact on the growing populations of these invasive species remains to be seen, but the idea of turning them into food has become a valid concept. 

It’s definitely not just about carnivores, either.  There are innumerable edible invasive plants growing all over the countryside… urban, suburban, and rural.  Kudzu, nasturtium, field mustard, wild fennel, etc.  I’m not the great forager here, but for the motivated individual, the possibilities run on and on. 

To tie this all into the main topic of my blog, of course wild hogs are a perfect example of an invasive, non-native species that has huge food potential.  In Texas (where I am right now), feral hogs are trapped and sent to packing houses where they are slaughtered and butchered for market.  While the FDA and USFWS don’t allow hunters to sell their game, wild pigs are finding their way to tables all over the country anyway. 

The ground floor of a new movement?  I dunno.  But  it’s all an interesting thought.

Usually, I know I am.  I’m sort of known around home as the guy who’s always at the mall on Christmas Eve.  This year, I think I’m all done… but I bet something or someone will come up between now and then.  It’s partly that I’m a procrastinator extraordinaire, but also because sometimes I just can’t decide what to buy some people.  Only the pressure of the last minute can bring my creativity to a boil… and I run out to find a gift card… or sometimes, just a card.  When all else fails, some construction paper and a Sharpie go a long way.

Anyway, the point is, I bet some of you are still wondering how to fill out that Christmas list.  Well, I just got an email from the folks at FoodSaver, and they’ve got a pretty sweet deal for the hunter or foodie on the “Nice” side of Santa’s list.  Here’s what the email said:

Greetings!

I hope you’re having a great day and taking some time to enjoy the holidays!  I work on behalf of Jarden Consumer Solutions, the owner of the FoodSaver® brand, and I recently came across your blog, The Hog Blog.  Since you are a hunter, I thought you might be interested in learning how you can preserve your game by using the FoodSaver® GameSaver® systems.  Butcher wrapping and ice-packing are often used, but this process can’t prevent freezer burn. Our vacuum sealers can!

We would like to offer you and your readers 50% off a FoodSaver® GameSaver® Gift Set. I know the holidays are already here, but you can take advantage of this offer throughout the next couple weeks. This bundle includes the FoodSaver® brand’s new product, the FoodSaver® GameSaver® Silver with a 12 volt power cord, a FoodSaver® Quick Marinator, and a variety of FoodSaver® branded bags and rolls specially made for the system.  You can claim your discount by clicking on this link or entering the promo code SAVE130C while making your purchase. (Please note that the discount will be applied once you add the item to your cart).

That means you can pick up that $260 set for $130!  Now, I’m already a big fan of the FoodSaver system, and one of their “Professional” units graces my kitchen.  Since I started vacuum-packing my game meat and fish, I’ll never go back to the old days of butcher paper, plastic wrap, or ZipLoc bags.  The FoodSaver is just too effective and efficient.

I know this sounds like a blatant plug, and I guess it sort of is (it’s also the result of not having content for a post today).  But I’ve always said I wouldn’t promote a product I wouldn’t buy for myself, and this is no exception.  If I didn’t know it worked, I wouldn’t be sharing this with you now. 

So there ya go… check one more name off your list, put an IOU in a card (if you order now, it probably won’t make it by Christmas), and make someone happy!  Even if it’s not here in time to unwrap under the tree, it should make it in plenty of time to vacuum pack a few slices of fruitcake.

Kat sent me this link from New York Magazine the other day, thinking that with my mania for hogs and hog hunting (and eating hogs) I’d find it interesting.  She was right!  I get a kick out of reading things like this:

1. Ears
A tough, unctuous body part becomes deliciously crispy when boiled, then fried or roasted. “It’s almost like a pork crackling but with more texture because of the cartilage.”

25. Snout
“It’s kind of sticky, gelatinous, and slightly cartilage-y. We did one once at the Spotted Pig; it was confited and then roasted until it got a bit crispy, then drizzled with some lemon vinaigrette.”

Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll be cooking up wild hog snouts, tails, or ears for dinner any time soon, but I did think Ms Bloomfield’s chart was pretty cool.  If I were raising my own hogs for slaughter, I’d probably be more inclined to utilize more of the parts. 

Anyway, check it out if you’re interested.  Follow the links after the piece as well to see several more really great articles about going whole hog.  You can also check out my friend, Hank Shaw’s Hunter Angler Gardener Cook blog.  Hank often writes about using the whole animal, from one end to the other and in-between. 

Enjoy!  Today is my last day on the road, and if the Christmas madness gives me a little time, I’ll try to get some more hog hunting information online for you all!

40.  Just a kid, right?  Just try telling that to anyone who’s lived a physical, athletic life. 

That 40 year mark can really be a turning point, the age at which the creaks and twinges become aches and pains (and it doesn’t get better).  It’s a time when you start to realize that the “glory days” really are behind you, as you start that long, downhill run on the backside of your lifespan.  It’s the age at which Jim Steinman’s classic lyric holds new meaning, “objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are.” 

It’s when the patch of “dignified grey” in your hair becomes a sprawling signpost, heralding your physical decline.  It’s a time when a lot of guys start looking for young, blonde girlfriends and shiny, red sports cars.  The divorce rate soars.  The 40-somethings are the Viagra demographic.  It’s a futile pursuit of fleeting vitality, spurred on by stubborn refusal to admit that the time has passed… at 40, you’ve reached the halfway point of the upper end of the average US life expectancy.   From this point on, when you’re feeling old… it’s because you are.

OK, enough of the pep talk…

Hank appears to be taking it well in stride as he’s completing his first book, riding high in the ranks of writers in the booming wild foods and foraging niche, and doing his best to live la dolce vita.  At a birthday celebration when most folks would be kicking back, letting someone else take care of them, Hank took the offensive and spent the evening between the stove and grill, providing us with a true, venison extravaganza! 

The menu included:

• Venison heart tartare
• sous vide venison roast w/sage
• grilled venison loin with truffle oil and lemon zest
• braised venison tongue w/horseradish
• venison gumbo (some of the best venison gumbo I’ve ever tasted)
• venison dirty rice — made w/ground venison and venison liver

There was much rejoicing, and as always, the crowd included an eclectic mix of wonderful and interesting people.  Unfortunately, I suck at remembering names, so I won’ t even try to list them all.  

Big thanks to Hank and to Holly for, once again, inviting us into their home.

So what’s this got to do with hog hunting? 

Not too much at first glance.  But I just read an article on SlashFood.com about how Fuddruckers is rolling out a line of “exotic” burgers.  They’ve had bison burger for as long as I can remember, but apparently they’re adding elk burgers now, and in September we can expect the arrival of their Wild Boar Burger (reportedly to be followed by the ostrich burger, although I seem to remember that they were already selling these at the restaurant near my house). 

Personally, I’m willing to give it a try.  The bison burger didn’t really set my taste buds to dancing, honestly, but I’m curious to see how they handle the elk and wild boar.

A new magazine will be hitting the shelves at the end of this month to address and support this movement.  Here’s the official announcement:

New Magazine Launched to for the Food Focused Outdoors Person

(March 30, 2010, Sacramento, CA) –  Power Media announced today that the first edition of its latest magazine, Cooking Wild – Hunt, Fish, Forage, Feast, will be available at the end of April.  Created to bridge the gap from the field to the table, each issue will cover things important to the food-focused outdoors person — hunters, anglers and foragers alike.

Cooking Wild Magazine is dedicated to helping improve and expand the wild cooking arsenal of home chefs everywhere. This new quarterly printed magazine will be loaded with tips, techniques and recipes from experts and home chefs from across the country. Available nationwide at the end of April, for a limited time interested subscribers can try it risk free.  

Cooking Wild’s Editorial Director, Andy Donald, explained, “We’ve always loved to cook the food that we bring home ourselves.  Be it hunting, fishing, foraging, or even our backyard garden.  We combined this love with the desire to increase awareness and expand people’s knowledge of cooking wild game, fish, foragables, etc.  To put it simply the magazine is going to answer the question, “You killed it, now what?”  Cooking Wild is here to help!”

For more information and to subscribe risk free, visit them online at www.cookingwildmagazine.com.

Check it out.  After all, the first one is free!

For me, a key requirement of all of my dream hunts was to do the hunt in a place where I can bring home the meat.  Whether it’s Alaskan moose, Newfoundland Caribou, or Rocky Mountain elk, part of what makes every successful hunt special is not the trophy antlers, horns, or hides, but the meat that comes from each of these animals. 

I’ve eaten an awful lot of wild game through my life… everything from snapping turtle to frog legs, to tree squirrel to rabbits.  I’ve had several different kinds of deer (whitetail, blacktail, mulie, axis, fallow, and elk), as well as antelope (pronghorn and blackbuck) and wild sheep.  When it comes to fowl, I’ve eaten pheasant, bobwhite quail, mountain quail, valley quail, mourning dove, pigeons, turkeys, ducks, geese, and a couple of other birds I’ll not mention (some were very good, and some…well, not so much).  The list includes bear and bison as well.  And, of course, I’ve had a lot of wild pork. 

But despite the extent of my list, there are still a bunch I’d like to try.  I’ve heard that caribou is awesome, as is moose.  Both are high on my list of dream hunts, in part for this very reason. 

So… of the meat I’ve eaten so far, what would be my favorite?  That’s a tough one.  I guess, in order to make it fair, I should draw a line between truly “wild” game, and ranched exotics. 

There’s no question (and no surprise) that when it comes to pure, quality meat, the ranch-raised animals get the edge for several reasons.  These animals generally live high on the hog, cared for with feeders full of high quality grains, plentiful water, and a general life of leisure.  For me so far, it’s a real close race between axis deer and fallow… with the nod going to the fallow buck I shot  at Native Hunt last year. 

That meat was everything beef wishes it could be.  It was very flavorful (but with a mild flavor instead of that stronger venison edge) and tender, even though the buck was pretty mature.  I imagine a younger buck or a doe would be even better… if better is possible. 

Of the truly wild game, I’m really on the fence.  A nice, fat whitetail doe certainly gets high marks.  Properly cared for in the field and in the kitchen, it’s hard to beat the flavor and tenderness.  However, a healthy, young hog can sure bring a smile to my face as well.  If I had to choose, I’m not sure I could.  I suppose the tie-breaker is the fact that more of my non-hunting friends seem to like the wild pork better than venison, so if I’m serving friends I’ll usually default to the hog. 

What about the small game, you might ask (you probably won’t, but you might)?  Cottontail rabbit, hands-down!  I’ve probably eaten more squirrel than any other small game animal, and I like it well enough, but if I had my pick, a nice coney is how I’d go. 

Anyway, that’s kind of where that train of thought runs out of track…  so now I leave it to you folks.  What’s been your favorite wild game (or exotic) so far?  If your dream hunt were based on the pursuit of meat as well as a trophy and experience, would that change your list?

The last time she did this, I lost all my hunting channels (along with most anything else worth watching), but since I refuse to pay for television, I had to go with her decision.  It was with some trepidation when she told me the other day that she’d be cancelling DISH and switching to DirectTV… but really, it couldn’t be much worse than it already was.  Heck, the best thing to watch on a lazy Saturday since then has been hilariously bad movies on the Science Fiction channel.  I do occasionally get to watch Versus, but in between “Paid Programming”, shows about gold panning, and the endless loop of the same four or five episodes of “Winchester Legends”, “Beretta’s Under Wild Skies”, and “The Bucks of Tecomate,” it wasn’t much to get excited about. 

Anyway, she made the change, they installed the service on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and I started scanning the guide.  Sure enough, we were now getting the Pursuit Channel and The Sportsmen’s Channel.  (The Outdoor Channel, one of my favorites, is not available with the package she selected). 

At first, I thought I’d be like an addict falling off the wagon, but honestly, outdoor programming hasn’t really improved all that much.  While there are occasional gems in the mix, there’s still a lot of the same old thing… glorification of the kill over the experience of the hunt, bad shots disguised by quick camera and editing work, and a total emphasis on “trophy” hunting. 

Even so, it’s hunting!  So I still watch… even as I grumble and mumble and armchair quarterback.

And what goes better while sitting on the couch, watching the idiot box, than a tasty meat snack! 

Yeah, I got that segue right off of the hunting shows… sorry about that.

But seriously, I do want to mention a product I had the opportunity to sample recently.  The good folks at Pop’s Authentic Artisan Meat Snacks recently contacted a handful of bloggers with a pretty nice offer.  They’d send us a sample of their meat sticks to try and review, and also offer our readers a discount for online purchases. 

If you’re interested in what I thought… well, I’ll be honest.  I’m not a huge fan of meat sticks or commercially made jerky.  I like to make my own, largely because I know exactly what’s in it and what’s NOT in it.  Most of those factory products contain ingredients I can’t even pronounce.  I sure as heck don’t want to put that in my system.

But Pop’s are not Slim Jims.  According to their literature, they’re made from locally sourced beef and pork and spiced with real, select spices.  So I tried them. 

And they really weren’t bad at all! 

In fact, I stuck the rest of the sample supply in my food box in Petunia, and ate off of them during my recent pig hunt at the Hedgepeth Ranch.  They sent me two sticks of each flavor: Original, Peppered, and Habanero (they advertise a Bacon snack stick too, but I didn’t get any of those).  As a lover of spicy food, I jumped on the habanero flavor.  It wasn’t nearly hot enough for me, but the flavor was good.  The peppered were also good, but honestly, I think I liked the original flavor best. 

I can see munching on these things in front of the TV, or out in the field.  I think it would be awesome to see them produce some meat snacks using some wild game meats, but hey… one step at a time, right?  If you’re interested in trying them for yourself, just type the discount code OSCAR into the appropriate field when you place your order on the website.  You can get a free box of 12 meat sticks with the purchase of two boxes. 

If you do order some, let me know what you thought of them.