Game dishes: recipes for cooking over the fire and at home

• October 22, 2018
• Cooking
• Oleg Petrov

Game dishes are special meat delicacies that real hunters delight their family and friends with. This is practically the only way to taste exotic roe deer, hares, wild birds and wild boars. In Russia, there are quite strict sanitary and epidemiological laws, so it is very rare to find such meat in ordinary supermarkets. Game is prepared in restaurants, especially those that specialize in meat. If you wish, you can master the recipe for a wild animal dish at home. In this article we will talk about several popular recipes.

Features of meat

Not everyone knows why game dishes are so valued. This is a nutritious and high-calorie meat that has dietary properties. In many countries it is considered an exquisite delicacy and is very expensive. For example, in Western Europe, the meat of partridge, which feeds on the buds of the vine, is especially valued, so dishes made from it have a characteristic bitter taste.

Nutritionists consider game dishes to be healthy and valuable for health, explaining that the quality of the meat is not spoiled by the remains of artificial hormones or medications.

Wild birds and animals differ from domestic ones in that they lead an extremely active lifestyle. So their meat is as dense as possible and not particularly fatty, even in the autumn. Before preparing such dishes, the meat is usually kept in a marinade, and it should also be lard, using a larger amount of fat.

Cooking secrets

There are several features of preparing a hunting dish from game, following which you can always make tasty and healthy meat. One of the basic rules of a hunter is that it is not recommended to cook a killed bird right away. It should be left in the cellar for several days. Game should be stored slightly frozen. Please note that the meat of wild poultry will be darker and tougher than that of domestic poultry, since it contains a lot of extractive substances, due to which it is considered a delicacy. The main thing is to cook it correctly.

Feathers from wild birds should be removed along with the skin. Then separate the breast and legs, remove the spine. Breast and legs should always be cooked separately. The main enemy for a cook who prepares a game dish is the gland on the bird’s tailbone.

To get rid of the unpleasant fishy smell that is present in waterfowl, it is recommended to blanch it for about ten minutes in boiling water. After this, all the liquid is drained, the carcass is washed and prepared according to the appropriate recipe. It is important to use tomato paste or fresh tomatoes in the recipe. It is due to this that it will be possible to eliminate the fishy smell.

But the meat of wild boar, elk or roe deer, on the contrary, needs to be cooked as quickly as possible. This is often done over a fire immediately after the end of the hunt.

Game preparation

Feathered game

To make feather plucking easier, feathered carcasses are doused with boiling water. Before you start singeing the bird, you can rub it with flour so that all the small feathers and down stand on end.

If a diving duck or coot has been shot, the skin is torn off along with the feathers, and then the subcutaneous fat is completely and thoroughly removed. It is he who emits an unpleasant odor.

When gutting game, do it carefully so as not to crush the gall bladder inside the animal. It is important to remove the lungs as they are very bitter.

When preparing small birds, they are prepared whole; medium-sized birds are prepared either whole or cut into two parts. And the largest birds can be cooked whole, divided in half or into 4-6 pieces. When cooking a whole carcass, it is often stuffed with vegetables, nuts, cereals or mushrooms.

Hares

Before cooking a hare, it must be hung upside down by its hind leg. Next, you need to remove the skin from the animal, gradually pulling it off from top to bottom. Along the way, it is necessary to trim the connections between the skin and the body to make it easier to remove.

After removing the skin, it is necessary to gut the hare, and then cut off the head and drain all the blood into a container. After bleeding, the last entrails are removed.

To make a game dish tastier, hare meat needs to be soaked in water or marinade.

Ungulates

The hunting kitchen receives meat from these animals only after they have passed the veterinary control of the State Service. The juiciest meat of large-hoofed animals is located near the back.

The top portion of animal carcasses is most often used for frying, while the front and back meat portions of the legs are used for braising. For cooking, meat is taken from the sternum and from the less meaty areas of the legs.

Bouillon

Many people love and highly value strong game broth. There are several recipes for its preparation. Let us give as an example one of the simplest ones, which even a novice cook can implement.

To prepare a strong game broth, take:

• pheasant;
• parsley;
• carrot;
• onion;
• two stalks of celery;
• three liters of water;
• salt - to taste.

Cooking process

Try to chop the bones as finely as possible, only after that put the game in a saucepan for soup. Send parsley, carrots, and onions there. They must first be fried without using vegetable oil. Add celery stalks, if desired, these can be slices of root, fill everything with water and put on fire.

When the broth boils, skim off the foam, and then continue cooking this hunting game dish over low heat for about an hour. Before removing the pan from the stove, salt the broth, let it brew, and then strain thoroughly.

It should be noted that broth, as a rule, was customary to prepare in cases where game was required for preparing a salad or dishes with mayonnaise.

Marinade

Marinating game meat is an important step, as without it the meat will be too tough to eat. Game dishes are best made from already marinated meat.

In order to marinate game, you need to completely pour it over the meat and leave for several hours. The basis of the marinade is vinegar. You can use both regular table and grape.

For 1 liter of water you will need 1-2 glasses of table vinegar. The necessary elements are sugar and salt, and for flavor you can use onions, garlic and various spices. In more sophisticated versions of the marinade, dry wine can be used instead of vinegar.

The container for marinating game should not be aluminum or copper, or have a poor enamel coating. Marinating time varies and depends on the age of the animal and the condition of the meat. Birds are usually marinated for 24 hours, hares for two days, and ungulates for 4-5 days.

Marinade happens:

• hot;
• cold.

Quail

One of the most common birds that hunters manage to kill is quail. We'll tell you how to cook game in this article. Quail is a relatively small bird that belongs to the pheasant family. More recently, these birds were a real delicacy; recently they are found more and more often, not only among hunters' prey, but also on store shelves. This is a rare case when you can find game in a supermarket.

The meat of these birds is very healthy, and in its dietary properties it is significantly superior to rabbit and chicken. 100 g contains only about 250 kilocalories. In addition, this meat contains many useful and necessary substances for humans. These are vitamins, proteins, phosphorus, calcium, iron. You can cook this game in the oven; one of the most common recipes is to bake the meat in sour cream and garlic sauce.

We will need to have on hand:

• five quail carcasses;
• seven cloves of garlic;
• five tablespoons of sour cream;
• half a lemon;
• two bunches of dill;
• two tablespoons of vegetable oil;
• ground black pepper and salt - to taste.

Chefs are hunters

It is noteworthy that many chefs are actively involved in hunting, so they not only know how to cook game perfectly, but are also its suppliers.

The famous chef and ideologist of the restaurant “Honest Kitchen” (Moscow) Sergei Eroshenko knows a lot about this matter. He hunts himself and cooks the meat he catches over live fire in the oven. On the menu of his restaurant you can find elk, game, wild boar - only natural, environmentally friendly meat.

In the restaurant “Smoked Bar” (St. Petersburg), whose chef is Rustam Tangirov, 85% of the dishes offered are prepared from natural ingredients obtained by Rustam himself. His passion, which has grown into a business, is shared by his entire family, who work with him in the restaurant.

Irkutsk is famous not only for its ancient architecture and the fact that it is an ancient Siberian city. One of the city's attractions is the excellent Okhotnikov restaurant, where the chef is Olga Tishurenkova, a woman who knows how to cook wild meat. A pleasant exception against the background of the male list of chefs. Olga is not a hunter, but she knows everything about berries and herbs and skillfully applies her knowledge in the kitchen. Her dishes are something worth traveling to Irkutsk for.

Surely in your city there is a cozy place where they love and know how to cook meat over a live fire. We recommend that you try wild meat from a wood-burning oven - you will remember this taste for a long time and, perhaps, will be inspired to experiment on your own.

Diet meat for dinner

Now let's take a closer look at how to cook quail. First you need to prepare their carcasses. To do this, they should be rinsed in running water and then dried thoroughly with paper towels. After this, each carcass should be sprinkled with lemon juice and then rubbed with salt. The quails should be left to marinate for at least half an hour.

After this, you can start preparing the sauce. Peel and chop the garlic using a special press, mix it with sour cream, and then add ground black pepper and salt. Mix thoroughly.

Grease the bottom of the baking sheet with vegetable oil to prevent the game from burning. If desired, you can cover it with foil, also greased with oil. Grease each carcass separately with sour cream and garlic sauce, and then carefully place it on a baking sheet.

The bird is cooked for 50 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 degrees. Here's how to cook quail, which should be as delicious and juicy as in the restaurant.

Cook at home

Home hunting cuisine is rich in a variety of recipes - from simple to sophisticated, capable of pleasing even the pickiest gourmet.

Boar meat fried with onions

If you want a tasty and juicy game dish, you will definitely like this recipe.

To prepare it you will need:

• one kilogram of boar meat;
• 200 grams of red wine;
• 100 grams of smoked brisket;
• 100 grams of fat;
• 100 grams of onion;
• 20 grams of flour;
• salt and black peppercorns.

The preparation steps are as follows:

1. A piece of meat is stuffed with smoked brisket, salted and fried as a whole piece, and then sliced.
2. At this time, 100 grams of fat are fried in a frying pan, and then the onions are fried on it.
3. Add a couple of black peppercorns, chopped fried meat and a little hot water to this frying pan.
4. After this, the pan is covered with a lid and the contents are simmered over low heat.
5. The juice from frying the whole piece is mixed with flour, dry wine and boiled down.
6. The fried meat is poured with the prepared sauce and simmered for another 20 minutes.

Bon appetit!

Snipe soup

To prepare the dish you will need:

• one snipe;
• 1 piece each vegetables (potatoes, carrots, onions);
• 50 grams of oil for frying meat;
• 50 grams of mushrooms.

The preparation steps are as follows:

1. The prepared snipe carcass is fried in oil.
2. After roasting the whole bird, the breast, liver and gizzard are cut out. They are cut into small pieces. All this is stewed in oil.
3. The chopped carcass is filled with clean water, and then peeled vegetables and onions are added.
4. After this, saffron and peppercorns are added there, and also salted.
5. Let the resulting dish cook.
6. After the cooking is over, the soup is strained, previously fried pieces of breast and giblets, and mushrooms are added to it.
7. Then the whole thing is cooked again for 15 minutes.

The soup is ready!

Pickled hare

Hunting cuisine, the recipes of which are quite varied, boasts many delicious hare dishes.

To marinate this animal you need the following:

• rear part of the carcass;
• half a liter of white wine;
• 250 grams of sour cream;
• 100 grams of smoked lard;
• 20 grams of flour;
• one onion;
• juice of one lemon;
• bay leaf 1-2 pcs.;
• black and allspice peppercorns;
• thyme, salt.

To prepare the marinade, mix lemon juice with wine. A bay leaf, black and allspice peppercorns, a little thyme and pre-chopped onion are also added there.

Then we start marinating:

1. The hare is washed, cleaned and salted.
2. Place the hare in the resulting marinade.
3. The hare is infused in the marinade for a day; it needs to be turned over sometimes.

After a day, you can proceed directly to preparing the dish.

For this:

1. The lard is cut and placed on a baking sheet.
2. A properly marinated hare is placed on top of the lard and covered with the remaining pieces of lard.
3. All this is baked in the oven.

Delicious!

Elk roll with mushrooms

Game dishes, the recipes of which amaze with their variety. And today we offer an interesting method of cooking elk.

To prepare you will need:

• elk fillet;
• onion;
• mushrooms;
• egg;
• salt and pepper.

The sequence of actions is as follows:

1. Onions, mushrooms and elk meat are cut into small pieces.
2. Onions and mushrooms are fried in sunflower oil.
3. Chopped pieces of meat are passed through a meat grinder.
4. The minced meat is salted and peppered to taste and an egg is added for viscosity.
5. After this, minced meat 1 cm thick is laid out on foil.

Then we proceed to “wrapping” and baking the roll:

1. Mixed mushrooms and onions are laid out evenly on top of the minced meat. But the edges must be left empty in order to seal the roll later.
2. Next, the foil is taken around the edges and the meat is rolled into a roll.
3. The roll is placed on a baking sheet and placed in the oven to bake for about an hour at a temperature of 200-220 degrees.

There may be a burning smell when cooking. Then you need to remove the roll from the oven and replace the baking sheet, and also add a layer of foil. The burnt smell comes from the juice if it has leaked out and started to bake.

Stuffed roast pheasant

Ingredients needed to prepare the dish:

• one pheasant;
• 50 grams of smoked lard;
• 30 grams of butter;
• salt.

Ingredients needed to prepare minced meat:

• two buns;
• milk;
• 30 grams of fat;
• 30 grams of onion;
• liver and heart of the same bird;
• ground black pepper;
• one clove;
• ginger;
• marjoram;
• sausages – 3 pieces;
• two eggs;
• salt;

The method for preparing pheasant is as follows:

1. The pheasant is gutted and allowed to rest well. After this, it is plucked, washed and salted. You need to salt both inside and outside.
2. After this, the animal is stuffed with pre-prepared minced meat and placed on a baking sheet. The pheasant needs to be sewn up before this.

Method for preparing minced meat for stuffing pheasant:

1. The rolls are soaked in milk and then squeezed out.
2. In a frying pan, finely chopped onion is fried a little in fat, then ground pheasant liver and heart are added, and the whole thing is stewed for 1-2 minutes.
3. After this, everything is cooled and other ingredients are added there, chopped or grated.

Pork and boar cutlets

An unusual recipe consisting of wild and domestic animal meat.

The cooking process is simple:

1. Animal meat (50 to 50) is cut and passed through a meat grinder.
2. Add a loaf of bread soaked and squeezed in milk.
3. Add diced lard, grated onion and garlic, ground black pepper, thyme, egg, salt, and wine.
4. All this is mixed and seasoned with breadcrumbs if necessary.
5. Cutlets are made from the resulting mass and fried until tender in vegetable oil.

Hare

Another affordable option is all kinds of hare dishes. It is much easier to get it than wild boar or elk. There are a lot of hare recipes; as an example, we’ll tell you how to cook this meat with apples.

You will get a dietary dish that can be given even to small children. However, this version will contain wine, so the dish is more intended for an adult audience. Apples and wine will give the meat an amazing and unforgettable taste.

Here are the ingredients we need:

• 1 kg hare meat;
• 6 apples;
• 2 onions;
• 150 ml red wine;
• two tablespoons of dried paprika;
• two thirds of a teaspoon of salt;
• a couple of pinches of ground black pepper;
• one pinch of Provençal herbs;
• five tablespoons of vegetable oil.

Recipe of the day

Before cooking, hare meat must be thoroughly soaked. To do this, you will need to leave the meat in the water for at least 12 hours. Moreover, from time to time it is recommended to refresh the water by replacing it with fresh water.

Cut the soaked pieces into portions, but not too small. Fry them in a heated frying pan with vegetable oil until a characteristic fried crust appears. Place the fried pieces in a cauldron or pan.

Sprinkle the dish with ground pepper, paprika and herbs on top. Pour in water until it completely covers all the meat, and simmer for about an hour and a half. You can leave the pan on low heat on the stove or put it in the oven.

Choose apples that are dense and large so that they do not boil to a puree. Cut out the core and divide into small pieces. Cut the peeled onion into half rings.

Fry the onion in a small amount of vegetable oil until soft, add it to the meat along with the apples, pour in the wine, and leave to simmer for another half an hour. Hare meat can be served with any side dish. Here's how to cook game in a tasty and original way.

Duck

Another favorite game for all hunters is duck. This recipe is suitable for both wild and domestic duck. The meat will be aromatic, tender and juicy with a crispy crust, as if it had been cooked over a fire in the forest. Moreover, making duck the hunter’s way is very simple; this recipe is even called “for the lazy.”

To begin with, let's take the following components:

• two wild duck carcasses (weighing about 0.5 kg each);
• potatoes (the volume should be the same as duck meat);
• 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil;
• 2 tablespoons of melted butter (you can replace it with butter);
• Bay leaf;
• 10 peppercorns;
• salt - to taste;
• greens - for decoration.

How to marinate meat before baking in the oven: 3 ways

In order for the meat to be seasoned not only on top, it should be marinated beforehand. We suggest using simple methods.

Method number 1. Onion method

Combine onion puree from 3 heads with 60 ml of vegetable oil, a tablespoon of mustard and spices.

Rub the resulting mixture onto the already stuffed meat and, wrapping it in cling film, place it in the refrigerator for 6 hours.

Method number 2. Soy sauce marinade

Mix 100 ml of sauce, garlic puree and sugar to taste.

Marinating time is about 4 hours.

Method number 3. Apple mustard marinade

Take 200 ml of apple juice, 100 g of mustard, 60 ml of apple cider vinegar and two bay leaves. Mix, rub the meat and leave for 3 hours.

Of course, these are not all methods, but we have chosen one of the most traditional and two very interesting ones. Whether you actually use them is up to you to decide.

Stew and fry

Wash the duck thoroughly and cut it into pieces approximately 4 by 4 centimeters. Pour a tablespoon of vegetable oil into a saucepan or deep frying pan. Turn on high heat and put the duck there. Fry over high heat for about five minutes until the meat turns brown on all sides. In this case, it will remain juicy inside. Reduce the heat to low, add pepper, bay leaf and salt to the duck. Close the lid and leave the meat to simmer for an hour and a half. During this time, a large amount of fat will be released from it, so you don’t need to add any water or oil to the dish.

About 30 minutes before the end of stewing the meat, boil salted water for the potatoes. We cut it into large pieces the size of meat. Cook it until almost done, but it should remain a little hard inside so that it can be cooked in a frying pan later. Boil small potatoes in their skins until half cooked.

Now pour four tablespoons of vegetable oil and two tablespoons of melted oil into a large frying pan with a thick bottom. Heat over high heat, and then add the meat, mix gently, and fry until golden brown. Add potatoes. Everything should fry for about ten minutes.

Turning off the heat, finely chop the parsley, dill and onion, place the duck on plates, sprinkle generously with herbs. That's all, this is a simple game recipe with which you can surprise your family or guests.

Methods for preparing wild meat and game

COOKING

This is the easiest way. The prepared meat is placed in water and cooked until cooked. This produces boiled meat (as a separate dish) and broth, which is used to prepare soups and sauces. Meat intended for cooking should not be marinated. To make it more juicy, pieces of meat are placed in boiling water and cooked until tender for about 1.5-2 hours. The meat will be softer and tastier if you add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to 1 liter of broth. The boiled meat can then be poured with vegetable oil and fried until a crust forms in a frying pan or over the coals of a fire. To prepare a rich broth, meat is placed in cold water and cooked for a longer time. To prepare broth for soup, it is usually recommended to take 2 - 2.5 liters of water per 1 kg of meat with bones.

The most delicious broth and boiled meat come from game birds of chicken breeds (quail, partridge, hazel grouse, wood grouse, black grouse, pheasant). Boiled wild pigeon meat has good taste.

Of the wild ungulates, the meat most suitable for cooking is roe deer, deer, elk and saiga.

STEWING

This is a common way of preparing game dishes. Stewed, dense game meat becomes softer. The meat is stewed in a small amount of liquid under a lid over low heat (1 glass of liquid per 1 kg of meat). Not only water is used as a liquid, but also broth, sour cream, and dry wine, which makes the dish more juicy and aromatic. Cooking times for stews vary. If small game birds are stewed for 30-40 minutes, then the meat of old elk is 3-4 hours.

Before placing the meat in a vessel for stewing, fry it for 1-2 minutes in very hot fat or over a fire until a crust forms. To improve the taste of the dish, add fried onions and carrots, tomatoes or tomato paste, herbs, mushrooms, and various spices.

To give the dish the necessary consistency and mild taste, add wheat flour. The flour is pre-passerated, that is, dried in a frying pan without fat or fried in fat (most often in butter). Lightly dried or fried flour retains its natural color and is called white sauté. Red sauteing is obtained with stronger and longer heating; the flour becomes light or dark brown. In camping conditions, sautéing flour can be replaced by grinding it with butter or diluting it in water or broth. Adding previously unpassioned or undiluted flour leads to the formation of lumps.

FRYING

Fry game over an open fire or in an oven with added fat. Frying pans, baking sheets, roasting pans, pots and other dishes, preferably with a thick bottom, are used as a roasting pan.

Game birds are fried either whole or cut into halves or smaller pieces. From the carcass of a hare, the hind legs and lumbar part (saddle) are used for roasting. The meat of wild ungulates is fried in the form of cutlets (made from minced meat), finely chopped meat (such as beef stroganoff, azu, goulash), portioned pieces (such as steak, entrecote, escalope, chop) or a whole piece weighing up to 3 - 4 kg. In order for the meat to form an appetizing golden brown crust, before frying it is coated with sour cream and fried on all sides in a very heated roasting pan.

The roasting time depends on the size of the carcass or piece of meat. Capercaillie and goose are roasted until cooked in the oven for 2 - 3 or more hours (depending on the weight and age of the bird), black grouse, pheasant, mallard duck - 1 -1.5 hours, small and medium game birds - 30 - 45 min. Salt the meat shortly before finishing the dish. During the frying process, the meat is poured with the melted juice. An oven that is too hot may burn the meat on top but remain raw on the inside. Therefore, after a crust has formed on it, maintain moderate heat, and place a cup of hot water in the oven.

To determine the readiness of the dish, a sharp splinter is used to make a puncture in the thickest part of the piece (for game birds, up to the shoulder joint on the breast side). In finished meat, clear meat juice without blood is released from the puncture.

It is better to cut the finished game birds into portioned pieces not with a knife, but with special scissors such as garden pruners.

BAKE

Baking is cooking meat in its own juices over an open fire, in an oven or Russian stove. To prevent juice from leaking out of the meat, a crust must be formed on it by intensely heating the meat over coals or on a wire rack in a very hot oven. The grate is pre-lubricated with lard or some other fat. To ensure that the crust forms faster and is uniform, the meat is coated with sour cream, mayonnaise or raw egg.

You can bake meat by wrapping it in foil or coating it with dough. Boneless meat is baked in foil. It is better to bake meat with bones and game birds in dough. The roasting time for meat depends on the size of the piece. A piece weighing about 1 kg is baked for approximately 1-1.5 hours, 2 kg

- about 2 hours, etc. To avoid drying out the dough crust, place a cup of hot water in the oven. If meat in foil or dough is placed not on a wire rack, but on a baking sheet, then wooden sticks are placed under it.

We can suggest the following method of baking game birds in the oven. The carcass is cut along the breast and flattened. After this, the carcass is salted, coated with sour cream or mayonnaise and placed on the grill of a very hot oven, cut side up. Place a baking sheet or wide frying pan with hot water in the lower part under the grill. After the crust on the meat begins to brown, reduce the heat and cook the meat until cooked without opening the oven. Mallard duck and black grouse are baked in this way for about 1 hour.

Boiling, stewing, frying and baking are the main methods of preparing game dishes. They can be used in combinations, such as boiling followed by frying, frying or baking followed by stewing, frying followed by baking.

KITCHEN WITHOUT FIRE

The highest quality fresh game meat can be eaten without heat treatment. When preparing these dishes, you need to be absolutely sure of the good quality of the product.

Stroganina. The method for preparing stroganina is extremely simple. Take a piece of raw meat or liver frozen to stone hardness and cut thin slices from it with a sharp knife. They should shine through and curl in rings. The slices are taken by hand rather than with a fork, dipped in salt and eaten immediately. In those cases when it is necessary to replenish your strength, this dish has no equal. Siberian hunters prepare a spicy sauce “makalo” for stroganina made from vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper with the addition of chopped onions and garlic.

Raw tenderloin steak. This dish is often included in the menu of the best restaurants as a symbol of the good quality of the products used. You can cook it after a successful hunt for deer, roe deer or elk. When cutting a carcass, the tenderloin is separated from the spine. The meat must be allowed to cool and kept for at least 8-12 hours to mature, but not frozen. The pieces of tenderloin, cleared of films, are lightly beaten and minced meat is prepared with a sharp knife, cutting the meat across the grain. For one serving, place 100 - 150 g of minced meat on a plate in the form of a round cake. Make a small depression in the center and place a raw egg yolk there. Top with finely chopped onions and cilantro and parsley. Salt, pepper, vinegar and other hot seasonings and sauces are served separately.

Spicy snack (Korean style). Cut fresh roe deer or deer tenderloin into strips 5-6 cm long along the grain. You can use meat from the breast of game birds. Place the chopped strips of meat in a glass jar and pour vinegar essence into it, add onions cut into rings, cloves of garlic, sprinkle with salt and red hot pepper. The jar is closed with a plastic lid and left for 1.5-2 hours, shaking occasionally, after which the snack is ready.

For 1 kg of meat: 2 tablespoons of vinegar essence, 2 - 3 onions, 1 head of garlic, 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of red pepper.

Cooking game dishes over a fire

COOKING GAME ON THE SPIT

Perhaps the spit is the most ancient cooking tool. In camping conditions, it is usually made from straight, sanded alder, walnut and maple branches. The thickness of the spit should be such that it does not bend under the weight of the meat, the length should be at least 1 m, then when cooking you can be away from the fire and your hands will not be hot. To prevent your hands from getting tired, the other end of the spit should be rested on a flyer stuck on the opposite side of the fire. You can cook any game bird on a spit, but perhaps the tastiest are wild ducks, especially diving ducks. The smell of smoke overcomes their inherent specific “fishy” smell. Over the fire, the meat has time to smoke a little. The gutted carcass is put on a spit and secured with soft wire (not copper), thick threads or fresh bast. The remaining internal cavity of the carcass is stuffed with something for the juiciness and aroma of the dish, and the carcass is “pinned.” The outside is wrapped with thin slices of lard. Mallard takes about 1 hour to cook, teal - about 45 minutes.

When roasting large pieces of meat or liver, choose a thicker skewer and trim it in the shape of a diamond so that the pieces do not turn. When preparing small pieces of meat (kebabs), in the absence of flat metal skewers, each piece is placed on two thin rods, because on one the meat is turned and always faces the fire with one side. To prevent the twigs from breaking, holes are made in each piece of meat in advance with a sharp stick, into which the twigs are inserted. A supporting crossbar made of a thick damp branch is installed over the fire so that the twigs do not bend under the weight of the meat placed on them.

The art of spit cooking is to choose the right heat setting. At the very beginning of cooking, the meat is kept for several minutes in the hottest place of the fire, and then at a uniform temperature. The coals should “breathe heat” and not flame. The larger the piece of meat, the higher the skewer is held above the coals.

COOKING GAME IN CLAY

This exotic dish can only be prepared while hunting. First of all, you need to check whether the clay is suitable for cooking. You need to roll several balls out of clay and put them in the fire. If the balls do not crumble in the fire, but sinter into strong lumps, then the clay is suitable. It is best to cook game of chicken breeds in clay, as well as wild pigeons.

You can cook mallard and teal in clay, but not diving ducks; their feathers are very dense, and the subcutaneous fat will give the dish an unpleasant odor.

The carcass is gutted without plucking the feathers, the neck and wings are cut off short, washed from the inside and salted. You can put fat, berries, fruits inside. Then the carcass is coated with a layer of clay about 1-2 cm, which is stuffed under the feather. The fire is raked, a hole is dug in the ashes and a clay “doll” is placed there. The grouse is baked in clay for at least 2 hours. A small fire is maintained on top, on which other dishes can be cooked

The “doll” is pulled out of the fire and broken: the feathers are baked into the clay and separated from the meat. If desired, the meat cooked in clay can be cut into pieces and lightly fried over coals until a crust forms.

COOKING GAME IN ASH AND HOT GROUND

Foil is convenient for preparing a variety of dishes over a fire. The carcass of small or medium-sized game birds is cut into halves, rubbed with salt, covered with thin slices of lard and wrapped in 2-3 layers of foil. The bundle is buried in the ash and covered with coals. Half a woodcock is baked in foil for 10 - 15 minutes. The early appearance of brown spots on the foil should alert you to the fact that the dish is burning.

When traveling, foil is convenient for baking entrecotes, fish, potatoes, and toasting bread.

You can cook small and medium-sized game birds as a whole carcass in hot ground under a fire. The prepared carcass is salted, greased on the outside, wrapped in maple leaves (burdock, water lilies) and tied with fresh bast. Having dug a hole in the ground, they put the carcass there, fill it up and compact the earth. The top layer of earth should be no thicker than 2 - 3 cm. A fire is made at this place. Medium-sized game (hazel grouse, wild pigeon) is baked in this way for at least 1 hour. Maple leaves give game meat a sweetish taste.

COOKING SMOKED GAME

Smoked game is considered a delicacy and has a pleasant aroma and delicate taste. Fatty smoked teal and quail are especially tasty.

Smoking can be hot or cold. The easiest and fastest way to smoke is hot smoking, pre-boiled meat directly in the smoke of a fire. Prepared carcasses are cut into halves. In large feathered game, cuts are made on the breast and the meat is immersed in boiling, heavily salted water (2 tablespoons of salt per 1 liter of water) for 10-15 minutes. Then the meat is hung on a special crossbar on the side of the fire where the wind carries the smoke. To direct the flow of smoke, you can build a “pipe” from a sheet of iron or the bark of a large tree. At this time, some damp branches are thrown into the fire. The meat is kept in smoke for about 1 hour. Game prepared in this way cannot be stored for a long time; it is immediately eaten.

For hot smoking on the go, you can use portable metal smokehouses. The game should be marinated first, and the marinade should be saltier (1-2 tablespoons of salt per 1 liter of marinade). The carcasses are cut into halves or flattened. After marinating, the meat is wiped with a cloth and hung in the shade to dry for 1 - 2 hours. The bottom of the smokehouse is covered with thin shavings of dry, peeled branches, and game bird meat is placed on the grate, cut side up. The smokehouse is closed and placed on the fire. The most difficult thing is to choose the temperature mode for hot smoking. Typically, the smoking time does not exceed 3 - 3.5 hours. It can be reduced to 1.5 - 2 hours if you put game into the smokehouse, previously boiled until half cooked. The first smoking period should take place at a temperature in the smoking chamber of 45 - 50 ° C, the second - at 55 - 60 ° C. During the cooking process, the smokehouse should not be opened so as not to disturb the dry sublimation of the chips. Usually, the first attempts at hot smoking game end in failure. For some reason, beginners place the smokehouse in a place where the fire is too hot, and the game turns out not smoked, but baked and too dry. But after one or two unsuccessful attempts, you can learn how to choose the right hot smoking mode and prepare aromatic, golden-colored meat, which can be stored for about a week even in summer.

A metal smokehouse can be adapted in camping conditions as an oven and game can be baked in it. Game is cold smoked in specially constructed stationary smokehouses.

Outlandish kebab

We emphasize that cooking wild animal meat is not always easy. Especially if you decide to barbecue over coals. The result should be juicy, soft pieces that are easy to chew. But if there is blood left, it will mean that somewhere you made a mistake: you took too large pieces or did not have enough time.

If you follow all the instructions, you will definitely be able to cook a delicious game shish kebab. To make the dish as exotic as possible, use wild boar meat as a base. Here's what we need:

• 2-3 kg of boar meat;
• 2 kg of onion;
• salt;
• ground black pepper;
• greenery;
• Bay leaf;
• caraway;
• lemon;
• celery;
• mayonnaise.

Boar on coals

Here is a simple version of what to cook from wild boar meat. To do this, pour water into a large saucepan, adding ground pepper, bay leaf, herbs, as well as all other seasonings and herbs. Boil everything and cool.

Cut the meat into large pieces, pour in the aromatic broth, and add lemon juice. Leave it in the refrigerator to soak for 12 hours. If you wish, you can pour out the brine in the morning and coat the meat with mayonnaise, but you can do without it altogether.

Boar meat shish kebab is cooked on coals for about the same time as pork, that is, a quarter of an hour. The main thing is not to forget to fill the fire with water and turn the pieces over.

When preparing this dish, it is important to accurately determine the marinade. For example, you can prepare a mixture of honey and wine. A bottle of inexpensive red wine will do. Pour alcohol over the boar meat and add salt. Leave it overnight in this form, and in the morning melt about 100 g of honey and brush each piece with it. Add pepper, onion, herbs, and bay leaf to the pan. For frying such meat, coals made from fruit trees are best suited.