Ep076 - Unlocking the Full Potential of Wild Game with John Wallace
In this episode of the Okayest Cook podcast, host Chris Whonsetler welcomes John Wallace, known as the Wild Game Cook on social media, to discuss the intricacies of preparing and cooking wild game, particularly duck and goose. The discussion delves into John's career shift from conservation to wild game cooking, his popular recipes like Dove Sushi and Duck Leg Wontons, and actionable tips on field preparation, aging birds, and utilizing often-discarded parts like legs and inner organs. The episode emphasizes maximizing the yield from each hunt and transforming game meat into delectable, approachable dishes, offering listeners practical advice and innovative recipe ideas.
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Chris: Man, it smells good in here. Let's fire up.
John: Sounds good to me.
Chris: Getting me distracted here with this visual in front of me, man. I yeasted get cooked for,
right? Right. Hey, welcome back to Okayest Cook podcast. I'm your host, Chris Whonsetler, coming at you from the studio with a special guest, Mr. John Wallace.
John: Thanks for having me. Chris,
Chris: the wild game cook, how are ya
doing?
John: Good, man. Nice little short drive over.
Chris: Yes, yes, we're neighbors and it's been way too long.
I've been dying to have you on the show and it just, you're close enough that like we gotta do it in person and
John: For sure. Yeah,
Chris: it's been this long since the schedule's aligned, so yeah. Super happy to have you on Super. Thrilled with the content you're making, buddy. Super, super fun. Um, definitely awesome approachable meals.
If you're not following John Wild Game cook, you gotta find him like super cool food dishes. Um. Um, I kind of gave away the intro, but do you wanna talk a little bit more about yourself kinda Sure. Dip into your past if you want to, and talk about kinda what you're, what you're currently up to.
John: Yeah. So, um, basically I'm doing wild game cook, uh, on social media platforms.
Um, just trying to create content for, uh, companies in the outdoor space. It's just a passion of mine, trying to get people to eat wild game other than just deep fried, wrapped in bacon, et cetera.
Chris: Yes.
John: Um, spent a, a career in conservation, uh, doing some fundraising for some non-profits for a good bit of years.
Um, but finally took a chance on myself a couple years ago. Uh, that's how you and I connected. We, uh, yeah. Filmed, uh, my Dove sushi video, which is, uh, a recipe I'm super proud of 'cause it kind of takes you back.
Chris: Such a good recipe.
John: Takes me back to like, why I started my channel, which was just everybody eats dove poppers.
That's just, and it's, I love dove poppers. Um, yeah. But kind of a di a different take. Uh, we made some sushi rolls out of it. Um, using all those recognizable ingredients. And it just takes you to a whole nother place. Um, and I'm not a trained chef or anything like that. I have a fish and wildlife degree.
I've just, I'm self-taught. Uh, we got a little something here that we're gonna try in a little bit that looks super fancy and presents well, but if this like good old boy can do it, then anybody can do it. So, um, yeah, just, uh, been doing it now for a little over 12 years and, um, it's coming together really good.
So yeah, just live in Ohio, not too far from you and yeah. Appreciate you having me on.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Well, a hundred percent. The self-taught is instantly what drew me to you. It's like you're, you're good at what you do, but there's not this like aura of like, I'm a professional, I've got a degree and I've worked in Michelin restaurants and
John: so that's
Chris: why you're a dude, you're an average dude and
John: I'm a home cook, so that is why the name is Wild Game Cook and Not Wild Game Chef.
Okay. If I'm not mistaken, I probably had the ability to have that handle back in 2013. It just wasn't who I am. I'm a home cook and, uh, I just, I feel like. Chefs are properly trained. Um, and I'm not properly, I'm not formally trained, so somebody
Chris: will correct us Yeah. With the, some of the verbiage.
John: Sure. But I'm a home cook who enjoys to eat good food.
Just I didn't grow up with like, maybe the best tasting best from scratch meals. We always had food on the table. Yeah. Hamburger helper, American style tacos, uh, vel vita shells and cheese. You know, like that's what I grew up with. And, uh, when I went to college, uh, there's no one there to cook for you, so you, you kind of get tired of eating ramen and mac and cheese and fast food.
And I just learn from there and, and just keep kind of growing and learning.
Chris: It's phenomenal. Yeah. The little bit I've tried of your cooking, like has been spectacular. Those sushi. Yeah. The Duff su Duff Papa Sushi was just exquisite and I forget what episode it was, but Yeah, definitely was like, I I made 'em up and had 'em for the guys.
Oh,
John: right,
Chris: right. Yeah. They were just freaking out. Yeah. A huge hit. Huge hit.
John: Yeah, because they know what the flavors are. It's just a different form.
Chris: Yeah. It
John: just
Chris: takes
you,
Chris: su su takes you to
John: a whole
Chris: new place. It's a good sushi, so it's a little, yeah, it's a little different. It's your, your take your take on sushi, so Yeah.
Yeah. It's phenomenal. Yeah,
John: for sure. Well, thank you.
Chris: Yes. Well, on to un notable meals and I think you've kind of spoiled. It's a little bit here. Uh, so I'm gonna start with my notable meal and, um, it's kind of a success story in my book and y'all know the channel it's called. Okay. As cook. I'm still learning, still getting used to all the things, but, um, I'm, I, I got a set of, uh, stainless steel pans and I'm trying to get used to cooking on those and I made like the perfect omelet the other day.
John: Mm-hmm.
Chris: Flipped just fine. Like it wasn't too brown. Didn't stick at all. But like, that was like major, major success in my book. And, um, yeah. Finished, um, it, in the end it ended up sticking just a little bit, like some of the ingredients kind of fell out the side, but, um, it was an omelet. It wasn't fancy scrambled eggs, so Sure.
That's always a win.
John: Yeah. It's practice. Practice, you know, like, um, I cook a lot with cast iron. It's the same principle, you know, like you just gotta preheat it properly.
Chris: Yes.
John: And then it takes care of itself. Yeah. And if it doesn't, then you didn't do something. Correct. Oh yeah. So you learn. You know, that's just, everything's learning.
Chris: Yeah. But stainless steel, like it's, it's a little bit more, or it's less forgiving, I would say, than cast iron. 'cause ca, cast iron kind of has the built in
John: mm-hmm.
Chris: Antis stick if you treat it properly. Uh, whereas the stainless steel man, you get that hot and you forget the oil, like it's, you're, it's game over.
John: Sure. I, I wouldn't be, uh, too forgiving of cast iron if, even if it's properly seasoned if you, if you don't know what you're doing. Yeah. It'll be a scrambled eggs for, there's always a way to mess up. It'll be a mess. It'll be a mess in a heartbeat. Yes. Uh, I, I rarely will do scrambled eggs if I'm feeling real frisky.
And I, I, I'm feeling myself. I'm like, I think I could do scrambled eggs.
Chris: Throw enough butter in there. You're good. So.
John: Yeah.
Chris: Yes, yes. Well, I'm assuming this is your notable meal.
John: Sure. Yeah.
Chris: Yes. What is in front of us?
John: So this is a new recipe that I've kind of come up with, uh, more of a dish than a recipe, but, um, trying to better utilize duck legs or water fowls.
Yes. Goose thighs. Goose legs. And so these are what I'm calling duck leg wontons or duck leg dumplings. Um, it's just a wonton wrapper with a meat filling. The meat is mallard legs that I de-boned and I put 'em in a food processor. You could put 'em in a grinder too, if you want. If you don't have a food processor or a grinder, you could totally just chop it up with your knife and try to get as small as consistency as possible.
Um, but I wanna tell you the ingredients and just know that many of these ingredients are optional. You don't have to put 'em in there. Um, but it's the meat. Um, I use a meso paste, which is from my friend, uh, Luke Costello's wife Theresa. She told me like, it's gonna add some umami to it, some salt component to it.
Again, it's optional, but it does add that sodium and that salt in there. Green onions. Um, I put in raw chopped green onions as well as sauteed green onions. I just figured two different flavors. Two different textures.
Chris: Yeah.
John: Minced garlic chili flavors. I'm digging
Chris: in here.
John: Go ahead, eat one. So, uh, it's just in a wonton wrapper.
Um, I have posted the recipe recently on my, on my Instagram page. The sauce is just a, uh, buchan's, uh, original dipping sauce. Uh, kind of compliments it. Well be careful of your sodium 'cause it can be too salty so it can survive without the sauce. Oh gosh. The sauce kind of takes it to the, the next level.
Chris: Nice dude.
John: Um, they're not as fancy as it looks. Chris is a great stager and a great photographer to make these look really, really nice. Nice. I didn't touch that
Chris: plate.
John: Um, but it's not that fancy. Uh, I don't know how to really fold or pleat the dump really well. Oh no. I just kind of get in there and do what I think I've seen on TV a time or two.
Um, I first made this recipe for Luke, uh, for, uh, up here at one of his classes he hired me for. And I just, in my mind, I knew what needed to be in there. Um, we had some duck legs available. Uh, yeah. And, uh, so yeah, we, you can make 'em in different varieties as Chris will probably be showing you here some photos of the ones we ate beforehand.
Chris: Yeah, they'll be right here.
John: Yeah. Um, but man, it's so good and, um, yeah, it's better than just breasting out your birds, you know, like there's more to that bird. And, uh, to me I think this, this recipe lends itself really well to waterfowl legs, you know, again, could be duck, could be goose.
Chris: Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, it, it could be anything like it's, you know, if, if you're familiar with waterfowl, it, it does have a pretty strong flavor and we'll talk about that, you know, here later in the episode.
But like. I'm not getting any of that.
John: Sure.
Chris: Like, um, just like what, what, what would you call that? Just the kinda minerally
John: Um, well, when you,
Chris: when you overcook foul that funk they put out. Yeah.
John: Yeah. It could be irony a little bit. You know, they're migrating, so like they're, they're red breasted birds, um, red meat.
And if you do overcook it, I mean, people have tended to say it can kind of taste like a liver. I mean that you really should cook your waterfowl to medium at most. Um, yes, but the key to this was for the last two days I've been brining it, um, in a high mountain, high mountain game, bird, poultry brine. I'm just a big believer of that.
Um, it just, it neutralizes any of those flavors and quite frankly makes it taste like deer meat.
Chris: Yeah.
John: I could say beef and it would taste like beef as well, but in our house, deer reign Supreme.
Chris: If you had no clue what that was like, you would never guess duck.
John: No.
Chris: It just doesn't taste like duck.
John: It tastes like a dumpling.
Yeah. It just tastes like an Asian dumpling. You could argue it'd be pork and you wouldn't be able to argue it.
Chris: Yeah,
John: because it's just meat. It's a texture that you're eating. Yeah. Again, you're in a certain place right now. Right. You can use a chopsticks if you feel frisky, if you,
Chris: if you can.
John: Um, so yeah.
Yeah. That's, it's nice. It's kind something I'm tweaking. Um, it, it, it's a big part of my page is just inspiring people to eat wild game in new ways. Yeah. And, you know, keeping the legs and then transforming those legs into this dish. I made 'em in a duck line this year, which is really cool. That's beautiful.
Um, kind of next level. Um, not very filling, so you might need to bring a lot of them. Um, but yeah.
Chris: Yes. Let's see. I love, like, it's, um, you know, any kind of dumpling like plays with that texture. Um, so we got like nice crisp side and like a chewy, softer side. And then, um, inside, so the, the meat's all like super consistent.
It's like a homogenous mixture. You said you used a food processor. Yep. Uh, but you did mention just chopping it up with a knife. Do you think that would be,
John: it would not be as
Chris: good, like, just to have like the, the meats, um,
John: more coarse,
Chris: kinda like you do with broads. Like it's, uh, just different. Um, a, a size consistency.
Sure. Um,
John: I think it would be, you, you know what I'm trying to say? I know exactly what you're trying to say and I don't know the words. I'm, again, I'm not a chef or by any means, but I believe that it, it would be better this way, but you could
more
Chris: homogenous and, and
John: Yep. But you should not, not make this recipe because you don't have a food processor or a grinder.
Sure. If, if all you have is a couple of sharp knives, totally try this recipe. Just
Chris: go to town.
John: You're just really gonna have to mince it up the best way you can. Um, only again for that texture that you and I are expecting with the crisp, the chew, the softness of the meat. If you want a little bit more chew to the meat, then Yeah, definitely.
Even a grinder would be, well just be more of like a sausage, sausage
Chris: texture inside. But yeah, very, very smooth. Very pleasant. Yeah. That's, try it. Find the, you've got a link you said on your website. Yeah,
John: it's, I posted it recently. You'll see a picture of some bone out mallard legs. Yes. Um, if you look at the caption and take advantage of it.
'cause I don't often write recipes down. It's not that I keep 'em top secret. I just. Chris knows I just don't like writing and getting thoughts out of my brain. Put 'em up to paper. So I knew this would be a hit and I hope it inspires you to try it. Um, the recipe give or take is all there. Um, many of the ingredients are optional.
I wanna point that out. Like, if you don't have fish sauce, you don't need it. Yeah. If you don't have fresh ginger, you don't need it. If you don't have any of those things, just omit it and put in there what you want. But meat, meat at a minimum, obviously. But garlic and green onions I think would be something you could totally buy or already have at your house.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
John: And then get after it.
Chris: Yes. Yes. Well, definitely. Yeah. A lot of it's subbable, like you said. Right. And like you've gotta tailor it to yourself. Yeah. And to your audience.
John: You could use cabbage instead of green onions. Yeah. You could use
Chris: Oh yeah.
John: Shaved carrots. There's, you know, whatever you wanna do.
Chris: We got options. We got options. So yeah, write in, tell us what you did differently. Uh, but it's beautiful. You should try it. It's something that I feel like a lot of people don't attempt because seeing this on the plate, like my instant thought is that's gonna be complicated. But I saw you make 'em like
John: Yeah.
Chris: And it came together crazy quick.
John: And I'm a fish and wildlife major. I'm just telling you like, it's not that hard. Yeah. As long as you don't care what it looks like at the end, it's gonna taste amazing.
Chris: Taste amazing.
John: And I have made it four or five times, so I've gotten better with presentation. The first couple.
We won't talk about
this.
Chris: They tasted good.
John: Yeah, they tasted great. They tasted great.
Chris: Yes. Yes. Well, let's, let's dive into, uh, getting more from your ducks. You mentioned legs that this is a perfect recipe for duck legs, and legs are a hundred percent. One of those things that, what do you say, like half the time, they're left?
More than half.
John: Way more than half. Way more than half. Okay. Yeah, I, I'd venture to say, and you guys could all chime in, um, I'd, I'd venture to say probably less than 10% of duck hunters, waterfowl hunters keep the lakes. Two main reasons. One, they don't know how to cook 'em. But more so they weren't taught that they need to take 'em.
Chris: Yeah.
John: Just breast your birds out. I'll just breast them out, skin 'em out, breast them out. That's all I need to do. Take the breast meat. And that's how I was kind of mentored into it, if you will. Uh, but because I have a passion for cooking, I took the extra time. I will tell you that those legs came from a hunt, which our blind killed, I think 12 mallards that day.
Chris: Okay.
John: And, uh, took 'em home, uh, had 'em all, you know, uh, transported. And I spent more time than I'd care to admit cleaning them because I'm not a great processor. I'm not great at it, but I did. It's tough
work.
John: It's a lot of work. The feathers to do that. Feather birds is
Chris: so annoying.
John: Yeah. To do that many birds.
If you wanted to make an appetizer for you and your family, you might only need three or four birds. Yeah. I had 12 and I went through there and I got all the legs that I could. I breasted, uh, plucked all of the breasts so I can get nice skin on breast again. You can see that on some of my recent post.
It's a lot of work. It's, it's a labor love. For sure. Sometimes the love is even used that with a grain of salt.
Chris: Yeah.
John: But. Up. It's totally worth it. Um, because I enjoy taking stuff like this to friends and family and wowing them, you know? Yeah. Whether they're hunters or not, they're like, oh my gosh, I never would guess that's duck or whatever.
Yes. So, um, I try to take the legs when I can. We don't get into a ton of birds. I mean, to quote, have a pile pick or to have these hunts where we're really stacking 'em up. That's not me. I'm scratching out a duck or two here and there. And that's kind of why I take the legs, because I owe it to that bird.
It's the only bird I've got sitting here. I've got three birds. Um, the one thing I always try to take too is the heart and the liver. So in our house, my kids, I have three kids, they really love fried, uh, hearts and liver. Awesome. So whether it's from turkeys, from geese, ducks, pheasants. Um, it's just a, a guarantee we're taking those.
And the gizzard, I know there's some gizzard fans out there. Um, I'm not opposed to Gizzards, it's just my style of cooking nine out of 10 times is hot and fast. Yeah. And gizzards are not hot and fast. They're low and slow. It is
Chris: not a fast.
John: And I do low and slow. You know, I, I do some brazing and some things, but it's really not my favorite style of cooking.
So I generally don't mess with the gizzards. But it is quite easy, uh, if you wanna try it, especially if you're new to waterfowl hunting. Try these things first before you take what other people say as the end all, be all of what it should be. Yeah. Um, use the stock for carcass or I'll use the, the carcass for stock if you so choose.
Yes sir. I've done it a few times. I've tried it. It's really good. It is a lot of work. Um, but you do get a, a large sense of pride out of it when you do have homemade duck stock. Oh my gosh.
Chris: It's crazy. Crazy good. Especially if you get into some of those late season birds that are just laid in with fat.
Sure. Big fat birds or just globs of fat all over their bodies. Like, oh my gosh, you gotta,
John: and if
Chris: you gotta make some stock out of it,
John: if you make this recipe, you could totally take, you know, when you're processing your birds de-bone, the meat. Right. Then these were froze as whole legs and I de-boned them last night.
But you could take those legs, which have all that cartilage, the feet, have all that stuff in there, wash em, you know, wash 'em, wash, put 'em in
Chris: that stock pot. Absolutely.
John: It's gonna be so gelatinous, uh, that stock, um, again, now we're talking less than 1% of duck hunters. You lined up a hundred duck hunters and maybe no one's making duck stock.
Um, but if you're new to it, or if you, you're looking to get more fulfillment out of waterfowl hunting.
Chris: Yeah.
John: This is where you get it.
Chris: Well, look at this. I mean, we've got, you know, those 12 birds gave you how many extra meals.
John: Sure. And this was probably that you
Chris: never would've had.
John: Right. And I froze multiple packages of duck legs for what I would call serving sizes for an appetizer.
Sure. And I think I brought maybe eight to 10 legs worth of meat with us today. We made 12 dumpling. And I bet you I used a third of the meat that I That's a lot.
Chris: Yeah. There's a lot left over
John: there. A third of the meat, and I made 12. So my public school math tells me that that's roughly like 36 dumplings we could have made.
Mm-hmm. And as we were discussing beforehand, you can have one bite dumplings, you could have a fuller two bite dumpling. You know, you could make some smaller fuller ones. You could make some smaller Yes. Petite ones. Uh, where it's more of that chewy wonton wrapper.
Chris: Yes.
John: There's no structure to how it is.
You can make this recipe, you can make your wontons look completely different than these triangles we made.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. It's freaking gorgeous. Yeah. I love it. It's up to you. Um, yeah, I, I like to keep the legs and I typically just do like a, like a slow cooked. Mm-hmm. You know, chuck 'em, the crock crockpot, you know, end of season kind of meal.
Like you save all your legs, just chuck 'em in the pot all at once. And I'm, I'm same as you. I'm shooting like one or two birds at a time. And, um, I'm trying to maximize what I pull from each bird because I, I'd never limit out. Right. Um, so I've probably got eight ducks worth of legs, 16 legs in my freezer right now.
Um, yeah. End of season. I'll just do like a. A polled duck sandwich leg.
John: Yep. It, it's way more approachable, let's say, than this, um, just by nature. But buffalo dip. Yeah. We take, we take goose leg meat, duck leg meat. Turkey goose is perfect Turkey for that. Yeah. Wild leg meat. And we, we low and slowed in a crock pott.
We shred it and we make buffalo dip out of it. And again, the duck flavor is really neutralized and people love buffalo chicken dip.
Chris: Yes.
John: You know?
Chris: Yes.
John: And most times
Chris: it's, it's getting to be football season here. Yeah. So. Yep. You're gonna need some appetizers.
John: Yep.
Chris: Yeah. Give it a whirl goose. Yeah. Is like duck.
I could see like, when you actually get the duck legs, I mean, they're tiny little things, so like you need. I mean, it's like one bite per leg. So like I could see, I could almost, I could almost justify it. I'm not gonna,
John: yeah,
Chris: because I save the legs and they're delicious. But geese on the other hand, that's almost like half the size of the breast.
Like they are a lot bigger than you think if you have not taken a goose leg.
John: One of my favorite cuts of meat, arguably, and I rarely cook with it, but stay with me here, is a go, is a Canada goose thigh.
Chris: Oh my gosh.
John: It just, you know, it's dark meat. So the, the, the muscle grain and all that is way different than a Yeah.
A really lean Canada goose breast, um, Canada geese. Get a bad rap for being greasy. You hear it all the time. Like Canada geese are greasy and
Chris: you're cooking it wrong.
John: Well, it's just they're incredibly lean, right? Yeah. So what it is, is when you're, a lot of times, especially late season birds, they can be full of fat under their skin.
Chris: Yes.
John: And that skin has a very low melting point. It just melts right in your hands. So now your hands are greasy. So inevitably you just believe that the meat is greasy. Yeah. And really out of all the wild game I cook, the leanest of all of them is a goose breast. Mm-hmm. It is the quickest to get dry if you were to overcook it or put it in a crockpot.
Yeah. Um, crockpots necessarily aren't my favorite, uh, for goose breasts because they can get so dry. Um, I would say on smaller ducks like teal, that's tough sometimes to justify, you know, keeping those legs, those real tiny. But when you've got nice, big fat mallards, um, especially late season when they've got some fat on 'em.
Yes. So, I, I, I separated 'em, I kind of sorted 'em in from like prime choice, et cetera. Okay. And I've got some that I just labeled fatty ones. The skin isn't on 'em, but there's a huge layer of fat. And I might try to do some sort of cone fee.
Chris: Yeah.
John: I've never done it before. Um, Jenny Wheatley from, um, food for Hunters.
Mm-hmm. She's, she's done some things with pheasant and ducks where she like basically cooks 'em in their own fat. I'll probably supplement some olive oil or something, but just
Chris: try to do, how do you save up all your fat? Like just literally carve the fat off the carcass.
John: Yep.
Chris: Chuck that in your leg bag. And then Yeah.
Just so that, like, I think that'd be beautiful.
John: Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Chris: There's a chef in town here, um, knife and board for a while that had a a, a duck comfy sandwich. Yeah. And it was, oh gosh. He, he sued that thing for almost 24 hours I feel like, which probably a little, a little long. Uh, but it was a farm duck, not a wild duck.
And, but oh my gosh, the meat that came off that bag was just
John: crazy good. And it sounds crazy intimidating. And I'll tell you, I'm intimidated 'cause I've never made it. But really it's taken the legs.
Chris: Yeah.
John: And cooking 'em in their own oil or in a oil, yeah. At a low and slow temp. It's not hard to do. Yeah. You just gotta get outta your comfort zone's and that's pretty much a lot of what my page is, is
Chris: Yeah.
John: Approachable meals is just not those four that everyone always makes.
Chris: Yeah. Well, let's, um, speaking of comfort zones, let's go back to the fifth quarter, heart liver gizzard. Oh, right. That sort of things. What are you doing with your, um, hearts and livers? Like if you're not gonna fry 'em, like do you have anything else that you do or is that just like
John: No.
Chris: Is that the go-to?
John: No, it, it is the go-to for sure. But I have another one, um, that you can probably Google. Um, it's out there on the internet, but it's called my HLT Water Fowler Slider. Okay. So when I know I always keep the heart and liver and then what I also do is I take the tender off the back of the breast meat.
Yes. 'cause it cooks more evenly when it's not on there. So I'd always have 'em sitting to the side and I'm like, how can I make all those into one recipe together? And again, I am very creative. Like I said, I'm not trained, but I do have a, a mind that explores. I'm like, if I just took all three of those things and chopped 'em up.
And made 'em into a thin patty.
Chris: Yeah.
John: And then made 'em into a slider. It'd have to be good. Right. So a lot of people, they get turned off if there's a liver in there and stuff. Um,
Chris: it's a gorgeous combination. Yes. I'll just, I don't, I've never had years, but like I just know, I know. It's gonna be
John: gorgeous. Just stay with me here.
'cause like there's ways to hide it, if you will.
Chris: Oh yeah.
John: Um, so the liver kind of acts as a binder, if you will, between the tender loin or the tender of the duck. Yeah. And the heart and the tender. What I do is I go through the process, you know, if anyone's ever had a chicken tender, a goose tender, a wild Turkey tender, they've got that membrane, that tendon that runs through there.
Yeah. Take your time to get that out of there. Even with ducks if, with this recipe, and then you literally do, I mean, you could put it in a food processor, but you're not really looking for that emulsified, uh, texture like we did with these. Okay. You're looking for more of that. Brought coarser heart, coarser tenderloin.
But that liver is emulsified and acts as a binder copy. It's a messy dish to make, but I, it, does it not look pretty? I promise you. You know, it just doesn't look great when you're making
Chris: it. It's sausage, it's it's uncas sausage. Yeah. Essentially. Yeah.
John: It's, it's, uh, more goofy with still
Chris: fat.
John: Right. It's more goofy, uh, goofy than that.
It's, uh, it's not pleasant, necessary to look at, but if you stay with the process, kinda like a
Chris: pate.
John: Yeah, yeah. And so, but you kind of form it into a patty. I mean, everyone's played, you know, uh, in a mud puddle and made mud pies. You're basically making a mud pie, but you season it. I use Greek, uh, cavender's.
Greek seasoning. It's very floral. It's very aromatic.
Chris: Oh gosh. Yeah.
John: And it hides that liver flavor. And uh, so I season it with that. And then you can go through the whole trouble of flour, egg breadcrumb. Or you can just probably do breadcrumb and probably be fine, but you pan sear it.
Chris: Oh my gosh.
John: And then what I found really helps balance it is a crisp white onion, like a good bit of white onion, and it's kind of a play on liver and onions, if you will.
Yeah. Um, and then sriracha mayo, like spicy mayo. Oh
Chris: gosh. Yes.
John: And you could use, uh, tomato and lettuce for that whole HLT. So the HLT stands for heart liver tenderloin, but it's kind of like a BLT kind of play, you know, in your mind. Sure. But on a little Hawaiian roll with that thin slider, it's kind of crispy because of the breadcrumbs.
Chris: Let's go.
John: And then when you, if you flash freeze 'em and put 'em in the freezer, when you thaw 'em back out and you kind of pan fry 'em to warm 'em through, they're almost better the second go round because that seasoning has had a time to permeate through that. Yeah. I don't make it very often. If I make it once a year would even be a stretch.
Chris: Okay.
John: Uh, because we do like fried, uh, hearts and livers and such, but my oldest son, well would a hundred percent, he would, he has in the past. Requested that for his birthday day. Nice. Like, it's, it's really solid. It's, again, HLT Water Fowler slider. You should be able to find it, uh, on the, it sounds incredible.
Yes. So that's another thing I do. Um, I, off the top of my head, I, I don't probably do a whole lot else other than frying them. Um, I do just kind of purge 'em in water, not salt water, just plain old water, just kind of the livers are everything. The liver, the hearts, everything. Not the tenderloins, but the livers and hearts.
I kind of just let them bleed out, if you will. Yeah. Change the water as needed. Um, a cool thing about livers, and I learned this from Hank Shaw, especially late season, especially if you're eating a lot of corn, like they'll be really yellow from, like, if you, if you. Knowledgeable of the situation. You think it might be diseased or something?
Yeah. 'cause they're not dark and red, but they're really just chockfull of fat from all the corn they've been per Really?
Chris: Okay.
John: It's kinda like a wild frog wall, which is just like a really fatty liver. And you just know they're going to eat so much better. They're gonna be creamier, they're not gonna be as liver tasting, if you will.
Um, they're all delicious, but yeah, we just fry 'em up. We could actually use the bachas. You can use whatever dipping sauce you'd really prefer.
Chris: Nice.
John: But our kids destroy 'em.
Chris: Yes.
John: Just destroy 'em. And you could throw the tenders in there too, and deep fry them too.
Chris: Yeah.
John: Oh my gosh. I take the hearts and I slice 'em long ways in half because it, there's a little pocket in there, right?
Mm-hmm. Of cavity. And if that were to seal up and there's moisture in there. Explode on you there. This is the disclaimer. Okay. Like, oh, your little grease trap, your little flapper thing to keep the grease from flopping arguably may not be enough. Like use caution when deep frying livers and hearts because there is moisture in there and it will snap, crackle, and pop on you.
Oh
Chris: my word. Yeah.
John: So if you survive, it just makes the food taste that much better.
Chris: What's a little oil burns here and there? Um, well, a hundred percent. Yeah. If listeners, if you're like me, where like, you know, the benefits of liver, like just the nutrition is off the charts, like we need to be eating more liver, but it's, it's a hard thing for me to stomach just because I don't like the flavor.
This sounds like the perfect way to just take that liver, transform it into something. They're hiding. That's actually palatable.
John: Yeah. And, and you can brine it too. Whether, and again, a simple brine, again, I, I'll give credit where credits do. This is, uh, Hank Shaw's recipe, but it's just a simple quart of water to a quarter cup of kosher salt.
Chris: Okay.
John: Just that simple. If you were to brine those hearts and livers in that for 24 hours
Chris: Yeah,
John: it would taste that much better than just that raw
Chris: Yes.
John: Not, you know, touched. So you're
Chris: not a, like, like a milk or buttermilk guy? Like you don't soak
John: I, I'm not, so, no, I'm not. And I,
Chris: for liver specifically,
John: oh, for liver specifically, maybe, but maybe a dear heart.
But I'm not going through all that hassle. And we're not buying buttermilk at the house on a regular basis. Never. Um, so I'm just, I'm one. I, my whole platform is just like, I'm not trying to go across country. To get a, an ingredient, right? Sure. Um, so plain water to me is what I do most times. I just don't want that added sodium in there.
Sure. Of the salt. People say it kind of pulls the blood out. Well, really, some people say like, it kind of tightens the meat up.
Chris: I could see that. Yeah.
John: And it forces the blood out. Well, now you, you're
Chris: pulling more water out at that point,
John: right? Of meat. It's tougher. It's just inherently a little tougher. So I just use plain water.
It suited me really well and I don't even use water that often, but if I, if I do use it, that's what I'm using it for. That's the style in which I'm using it. Um,
Chris: so I've, I've, I've heard of the milk buttermilk, but I've never attempted it.
John: I've attempted it with liver, with deer, liver,
Chris: deer.
John: Um, I think it, it not only helps pull some of that blood out of there, what I've done with deer liver, not to get off topic, but I'll slice it, you know, just to help it better get out of there.
Um, but it also kind of helps balance maybe the pH and such. Um, I've tried deer liver. I've made some really palatable recipes that are edible. It's just not our thing. So I use the deer liver for other, other things. Yeah.
Chris: Well it sounds an awful lot like a sausage that, um, some local chefs here have made Chris Eile and Neil Brown just like knocked it out of the park.
Like some of the best sausage I've ever had. I talked to him after the event and they're like, yeah, there's a lot more liver in that than you'd think.
John: Mm-hmm.
Chris: And they gave him the recipe and it's a lot of liver.
John: Yeah. Yeah. And boan down in Louisiana, right? Yeah. Like, I love good boan. It's so good.
Chris: Yes.
John: Um, and when done properly, like if you didn't tell people that there was liver in there, seven outta 10, people wouldn't know that there was.
Chris: Yeah. It's beautiful. I need to, I need to start saving livers and doing more of this with that. Um, well, back to water and soaking, are you soaking breasts at all? Breast or thighs?
John: A lot
Chris: of duck skis.
John: A lot of times I might give them a quick rinse under the sink if they're quote clean, like, you know, no broken bones, no big heavy shot spots.
Um, I'll give 'em a quick rinse to get any of, uh, remnant feathers that might still be on there. Yeah. From the plucking process or whatever. Um, if I do have shot breast, which is very common, right? I mean, they're just pummeled, um, which is unfortunate, but it's a very realistic happens part of this deal. It happens.
Um, again, I've generally got cold water running. This is before I soak 'em and I find those trouble spots and I really just dig my finger, my thumb, I just dig it in there, into that hole. Um, and I, you know, if it requires light scraping, then it's light scraping. If I realize I feel the hole and I'm just gonna keep tunneling through it, then I tunnel through it and I get that out of there.
Now that means that I can't use that breast for a particular recipe because it's not gonna show as well. Right. Sure. That's said, I do believe waterfowl gets a bad rap a lot of times because. Those are the shot spots that I can see. Sure. Sometimes you can't see 'em all. Yes. And there's this huge pocket of coagulated blood inside, especially a goose breast.
Yeah.
Chris: Those steel pellets tend, they burrow
John: and Yeah. And so that is where a lot of this bad irony blood flavor comes from. It's literally from blood that came into that breast. A lot of people when, when red fluid drains from your meat, they call it blood, but really it's myoglobin. Yeah. And it, I always, so I don't get corrected online.
I always say fluid drain the fluid away. But in this particular, here's what we're talking about. It's straight blood, it's straight coagulated blood in that duck breast, that goose breast, it's, yeah, it's purple and thick and it's running through all the fibers. Cut that out of there. Yes. Like, 'cause milk's not gonna help you.
Uh, a, a water soaks not necessarily gonna help you. You're gonna have to trim that outta there because you're trying to create, at least, especially if you're trying to introduce someone to eating it. You wanna kind of create the perfect bite?
Chris: Absolutely.
John: Um, you know, obviously you gotta watch out for shot pellets.
That's a whole thing, but, um,
Chris: actually, my, my tip for that.
John: Oh yeah.
Chris: Is this guy, we've talked about this in the past. Yeah,
John: I've got, I've got that same one.
Chris: Yes. Um, if you do not, if you're a waterfall hunter and you do not have one of these metal detectors, you need one,
John: it'll
Chris: findin. What does this cost like?
I think it's maybe a hundred bucks. It's
John: 80 to a hundred. 80 to a hundred for that thing. It's
Chris: less than one 50.
John: Yeah. It's,
Chris: um, and what's it cost to replace a molar
John: with steel shot with mo more than that? Steel shot's. Not pa pal polyol, whatever lead is right? It mo uh,
Chris: yeah. Lead's not as bad, but yeah. Steel wheel, like
John: it's moving, send
Chris: you to the doctor.
John: And so my pro tip on that is, and it will find tungsten, lead, bismuth, all that, you know, it's has nothing to do with magnets. It's just a metal detector. Yeah. But my pro tip. Is the battery, the nine volt, when you're not using it, flip that nine volt around 180 so it's not draining the battery. 'cause you'll go to pull that out at the beginning of the season and your battery's dead.
Chris: Dude, honestly, I've never changed the battery on this thing and I've had it for three years. Maybe I don't use it all that much again. I don't shoot
John: Oh man,
Chris: that many birds.
John: But I'm not gonna challenge you on, on the podcast here, but it will it turn on for you?
Chris: That's a good battery.
John: Okay. There you go.
'cause I hate, I hate buying batteries, especially nine volts. And so I've just found if you flip that around backwards, it'll still uh, yeah, close up real nice. Nice. And uh, but yeah, that's definitely a great tool. Um, and it, it definitely will find a pellet in there for sure. Um, obviously Goose is a little more dense.
Um,
Chris: what, what did you hear, John,
John: in order to turn off? It's, it's a, it is tricky. Okay. It's tricky. It's not long, long hold. It's like, but not a short hold. It's
a
Chris: kind of long hold.
John: Yeah. Yeah. And so maybe, maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe it wasn't the battery that drained it. Maybe I Well, it does have an automatic turn.
Maybe you
Chris: just left it on.
John: Yeah. But it's, it's a great little tool for sure.
Chris: A hundred percent worth it. Yeah. I've found so many pellets that, like you said, like they, they burrowed in so you didn't see the hole.
John: Sure.
Chris: But like somehow they were there.
John: Yep. It's, and if you're gonna grind goose or duck meat,
Chris: it's gonna wreck your grinder.
John: You're gonna want to try to do your best to find that before you run it through a fine plate. Now you could run it through a coarse plate, and I've done this, you run it through a coarse plate, 'cause it, that shot pellet's gonna flow through there. Then you take that, making sure it's not on somewhere where there's already metal and run it through that ground meat.
And it's literally like. Metal detecting, you're looking for that buffalo nickel, you know, but, uh, it's a steel pellet.
Chris: Yeah. It's a, it'll pick it up a hundred percent. It'll pick it up. Mm-hmm. And, um, yeah, I mean, not only will it like clog your grinder, but like, even if it just nicks the blade
John: Oh yeah. It could doll something or, yeah.
Make it like, have, like Yeah. Just,
Chris: it'll literally dent it. Yeah. 'cause that steel is no joke.
John: If you wanna pull that back out real quick. Just another pro tip too, and I, 'cause I had to call Garrett to like, figure this out, but any, any normal person would just assume like, this is the most sensitive area of that thing.
But this is what they told me. I'm shocked.
Chris: I was shocked when you told me that.
John: Yeah. This is actually where you want to try to narrow in what you're looking for is to use this.
Chris: So if you're listening, not watching, it's not the tip, right? It's like the, the knife edge. Yep. Alongside, yep. There's
John: like a harder edge.
And that's what they told me to utilize. So, so
Chris: the, the long thin edge. Uh, but yeah, basically the knife edge is more sensitive than the actual tip.
John: Yep.
Chris: Uh, but tip is great. Yeah. If you wanna like put that on one of those shot. Mm-hmm. Um, like the holes in the breast, if, if it is a shot up bird. And, um, I
John: think, I think to that point, I think yes, if you're trying to pinpoint, literally, I think there's what's called a pinpoint metal detector that use the tip, but more times than not, it's not gonna find it through that dense goose breast if you're using that, have to.
Oh yeah. For Goose, you have to use that edge. It's waterproof, so don't worry about getting it dirty.
Chris: Yeah. And you almost have to do on goose, especially, you have to do both sides. I've noticed
John: it's thick.
Chris: Yeah. Um, so if you, if, if you scan the one side, I've missed some pellets that were like at the, um, like at the surface on the opposite side.
So Yeah, definitely scan both sides and then you won't, um, you can't over scan your meat.
John: Right. Yeah.
Chris: When there's, when there's steel in there
John: and you might, it's not foolproof. Okay. It's not foolproof, but it is definitely a valuable tool. Yes. Gives you a little more peace of mind when you're, when you're eating your meat.
Chris: A hundred percent. Yeah. And it, you mentioned earlier, giving waterfowl to new
John: Oh yeah.
Chris: Waterfowl eaters.
John: It'll ruin,
Chris: it's a weird way to say that. Yeah. If they bite steel, like they will never try duck again. Like it's game over.
John: Yeah, it is. It really is. It's game. 'cause they, they're, they won't forget it.
Chris: Yeah.
John: And it's not moving in there. Like you're gonna chomp down on it. I always tell people, Hey, chew lightly. I never chew lightly. No. You know, like, do what I say, not as I do. I, I'll go into those dumplings and just, or whatever. It's just go to town and just go to town and deal with the consequences.
Chris: I've, I've almost cracked a molar.
Like I've, I took a bite out of, I think it was either jerky or pastrami. And man, I just bit so hard, like, and it just instant regret and like, I, I was like a, a millimeter away from going to the doctor. Like it hurt so bad.
John: Yeah.
Chris: But I, I toughed it out and like the next day I was fine, but like, I was danger close to like losing a tooth.
John: So, pro tip on that, when you're making jerky or if you've got a smoked breast or perro or whatever, slicing it as thin as possible to serve it to folks.
Chris: I was shocked because I thought I sliced it thin enough.
John: Sure.
Chris: But like, I guess I just hit that.
John: Yeah.
Chris: Pellet, like in the exact right spot.
John: Eight, nine times outta 10.
Slicing it thin is gonna help you. But there's that. One or two times where, you know, a BB or if you, if you're using a number two shot or potentially a number four shot that you happen to drop a goose with, or even a duck if it's a number four shot, that's not that big. Yeah. And we use a lot of four shot in early season.
So if you just happen to slice it on both sides of that and that that's exactly what you did. So yes. But it does help.
Chris: It helps a lot. Yes. Well, back to preparation. Talk more about plucking birds outside of like, making stock. Yep. I know you said you like to keep some of the skin on your breasts. Yeah. Um, talk about that a little bit.
John: So,
um,
Chris: and sorry, back up. Is that goose and duck or just duck Great. Or what, what, what do you, what is John Wallace doing there?
John: Sure. Great question. And again, I'm not the end all be all in what you should or shouldn't do, but, um, I generally don't pluck goose breasts, um, or the bird itself. Very often I have done that.
I. You should pluck younger, smaller birds. 'cause they just, they're more tender. Uh, and it's less plucking. I didn't know that when I first did it and I took the biggest farm pond. No conquer. You could take me and my buddy.
Chris: Those
John: feathers are
Chris: tough to get out too.
John: Oh man. I was like, are you sure your wife's gonna be fine with this?
'cause it was just snowing. I mean, they was just feathers. If you ever pluck a goose or if you've ever plucked one, you know what I'm talking about. We were on
Chris: the down and
John: is a lot. Um, so you totally can. And I do wanna pluck a goose breast here this, this late season if I can. And I wanna make pastrami with skin and fat on.
Okay. Most times you don't see that?
Chris: No.
John: And I like a fatty ribeye now that I'm getting older. I like fatty brisket. I like fatty pastrami. So why wouldn't I leave that fat and skin on that goose breast? Um, in regards to plucking whole birds, cooking whole birds, I have cooked whole birds. I've roasted 'em. I followed Hank Shaw's recipe, meat eater's, recipe, any, I followed them and they're edible and they're good.
It's not my favorite preparation. It's just you're, when you, and Hank Shaw would tell you this, if you're cooking that whole bird and you're broiling it on high and you're getting that meat cooked to a nice medium, rare medium, and you're getting a crispy skin, you're gonna sacrifice somewhere and it's probably gonna be in the legs.
Yep. And that, that skin in the crack of the thighs is just gonna be kind of rubbery and not cooked all the way through. And so I, I just, I rarely will pluck a whole bird for the purpose of cooking a whole bird. Yeah. Because generally, even if I do that, I ultimately end up taking it outta the freezer and I'm gonna break it down anyways.
Yeah. So to pluck the birds, especially just, if you're starting out, just pluck the breast meat of these ducks. And there's a couple yes ways in which you can get out of plucking. So early season when there's a lot of pin feathers. Which are not the little hair-like feathers, pin feathers are the feathers that are trying to plume out.
Like they're, if you've ever heard of like
Chris: new feathers?
John: Yeah. Like new feathers. If you've ever heard, like, you know, though that duck's not fully plumed out yet, it's 'cause it's still building these feathers.
Chris: Yeah.
John: Um, so if there's a ton of pin feathers, I stop plucking and I skin the breast and I move on.
'cause if not, you just gotta take tweezers and pull those all out.
Chris: Yeah.
John: And I love to pluck birds, but I, I don't love 'em that much. Um, but if you do see birds, especially later in the season that are really fatty and they, they haven't been shot up, you know, a lot. You shot 'em well. Head shots only, you know?
Mm-hmm. Um, you just kind of take your thumb for those that are watching, you kind of take your thumb and you pinch it. Um, with the tucked in pointer finger and you kind of just grab the feathers, roll your thumb against the skin and just pull up, go against the grain. Uh, smaller birds like pheasants and quail, you can easily tear the skin.
It's a, it's much more delicate process.
Chris: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
John: But more times than not, ducks are pretty hardy, especially geese are pretty hardy. So go against the grain and you're just doing your best. You know, you're, you're, it's better to try it and fail or to, you know, learn than to not do it at all.
Chris: Yeah.
John: But pluck that breast all the way up to the neck, all the way along the sides, like up under the armpit more
Chris: than you think.
John: Way more than you
Chris: think.
John: A lot more than you think. And more reason I say that, it's not that you could get, if you don't pluck as more, as much as you think when you go to breast, that bird out, you're just gonna have to repl some more feather.
So it's like, try to do it more on the front end so everyone doesn't want to work all that much. Right, right. So get more of the plucking done first.
Chris: Yeah. I would say that go like beyond the wing. Like, like if, if the wing is still on the bird mm-hmm. And you're just doing the breast. Pluck,
John: you'll notice that skin difference.
You'll notice like on the breast, it's more of like a textured skin, and as soon as you get to the side of that bird, it's quite smooth.
Chris: Yeah.
John: And it's about a half of an inch to three quarters of an inch wide on a mallard. And it actually plucks way easier than the breast meat itself. It's mostly down feathers.
It's very, it's a different feather. Yeah. Um, but I pluck, I try to pluck all my ducks to the skin and then I judge from there whether or not it's worthy of continuing to be plucked. Sure. And then once I go from there, yeah. I just take my, um, breasts and, um, I generally breast 'em out separately. Um, I, I generally don't pluck the legs and keep the skin and fat in the legs.
Yeah. Not that you couldn't, you could totally do that cone fee recipe that we were talking about earlier, but I'm just trying to push those legs outta there and get 'em out and they're pretty much skinned out. But if you look, again, one of my recent posts, you'll see a bunch of mallard breasts that are plucked and they're beautiful and some are shot up, some are
Chris: so gorgeous.
John: And I, you know, some of those I might eventually rip the skin off and make some other recipe, but at least I have that option. Yes. Once you get a skinless duck breast, I mean, that's what you've got. Now you can do different things with it, but it's not near as much as when you have that skin and fat on there.
Yeah.
John: So I'm gonna pluck 'em all now, mind you, I've got three kids who all hunt with me and they all help in this process. So it's not a one man show doing all this
Chris: that is big help.
John: I have them learn how to pluck my one son. Uh, I asked him if he'd help the other day. I was like, just help me with the pluck in and I'll do everything else.
Yes, we sat
Chris: and it, and it is easier to do that sooner. Which kind of follows or, uh, segues into my next question. Are you aging your birds hole at all or are you just like butchering straight away?
John: Great question. So it's funny, like I,
Chris: I wanna come back to the, the, the breasts. Yeah. But like, yeah.
John: So I do age my birds.
I, I try to age 'em. I'll be honest, and I kind of funny here, but I, I'm kind of telling the truth like sometimes again, taking those kids out or I, I do mentor a lot of new people to duck hunting and I gotta make sure they don't shoot species. They're not supposed to shoot and I gotta make sure they're muzzles in their right spot.
It's quite mentally exhausting. Yes. Not to mention duck hunting in general. If you're in waders and you're in muck and doing a bunch of stuff, it's a, it's a lot of work. So I say IH my birds in the fridge, which I am, but really, I'm just too tired to clean them at the current moment. And so I generally always, even when I'm hunting, if I'm not hanging them like on a strap or something, if we're on the ground.
I, I face 'em with the breast facing up. I just don't want all that blood rush into the, uh, the breast meat as much. But I, I face 'em with their belly face up. I do the same thing with doves so they can just kind of cool off a little faster. Um,
Chris: just like on a tray in your fridge?
John: Well, well, generally, no. I just put 'em, bless my wife's heart.
She's really generous. We have a, what I call a beverage fridge, but it's also our game fridge, the garage
Chris: fridge.
John: Yeah. And I'm flopping those ducks right on May, I may, it might be a 12 pack of Mountain Dew or whatever, but because, you know, I'm just putting them in there. Um, and I'd say, you know, one to two days would be ideal.
Yeah. You could definitely go longer for sure. I mean, there's all kinds of methods out there for aging your birds for a long period. Depends on
Chris: how the bird was shot. Yeah. If it's guts or like hanging out
John: the one thing that, yeah, be
Chris: careful.
John: So that's a great segue. So the one thing that really kind of stops me from aging them too long.
More than say two days is I do really love the heart and liver. Yeah. And sometimes if you go five, six days, it's not that that breast meat isn't amazing and it's really aged and things have set in, it's gonna make it really tender and taste better. But now you might have sacrificed the ability to go in there, in my opinion.
Uh, just 'cause what I like and don't wanna smell and so on, is those guts in the heart. Yeah. I might keep the heart maybe, but probably not the liver most times. So those are best fresh. Absolutely. Yeah. And you, and you can gut the birds and kind of leave them in there on the carcass just like you would a deer, um, if that's important to you.
Um, so it just depends. It depends on how exhausted I am, to be honest. Whether they go in the fridge or if it's cold outside. 'cause we've had some really cold weather here lately. Yeah. And I'll put 'em outside and I'll get to 'em when I get to 'em. Um, but it's, it's, I only say this 'cause I believe a lot of water fowlers fall into this trap, but I'll get to 'em when I get to 'em and it's a week and they've gone bad and now you're trashing 'em.
And it's a topic that probably a lot of people don't wanna talk about, but. It's, it's easy to do. Yeah. And so if you are that type of person who might like, not want to do it, it's best just to rip that bandaid off when you get home, clean your birds.
Chris: Yep.
John: And you're not gonna notice a huge difference in taste.
Chris: Yeah. I, I think it is worth aging though. It is. Um, it does make little changes. Yeah. If you're used to waterfowl and, um, eating, you know, certain ducks that have flown in from certain places, like you'll, you'll notice a big change. Yeah. Just overall flavor. Uh, plus yeah, it does spread out the, the window of, of time.
Um, yeah. With venison it's, yeah. Game changing. You had to hang your quarters and
John: Sure.
Chris: Work on it over the course of a week or two. Uh, yeah. For ducks. Yeah. Just like I said, it's, it's an exhausting task. So the longer you can spread out that workload,
John: I said it earlier, it's a labor of love. Like, you've gotta love to, I shouldn't say you love to do it.
You love to respect the animal. You love to cook. You want the most out of that animal as you can.
Chris: Absolutely. Yeah. Yes. Well, back to, um, the breasts and skin, uh, we talked about duck predominantly, which is stunning. You need to keep the fat in the skin on the duck breast. That is beautiful. And I'll never, unless it's really bad shot up, I will never take the skin off the breast if I can avoid it.
Goose, on the other hand, I maybe I just haven't tried it enough, but I'm just not a fan of like, the way that goose fat and skin tastes. So like, do I need to try it again, in your opinion, or,
John: um, so I have had, I've had limited experience with skin and fat on goose. I had that whole plucked bird that I cooked for, I think like Christmas one year.
Chris: Okay.
John: Um, and it was great. It, it was really great. Um, but I would say is that doing that pastrami where you're smoking it for four hours is gonna render that fat, it's gonna crisp that skin. It's gonna be way different than say, pan searing. That goose.
Chris: Yeah.
John: Um, 'cause it's a heartier bird. I mean, we were killing some late season geese this year and the amount of down and fat they had with the number two, we were using number two steel shot 'cause we're mainly duck hunting.
Sure. Um, many of those shots were just sitting just under the skin, didn't, never even penetrated the meat. Obviously head shots or a broken wing is what ultimately was the demise of that bird. Um, I don't wanna get sidetracked, but as far as ducks go, the other thing too, as I'll reference are you mostly are, do you have a little bias in regards to, are you mostly shooting puddle ducks?
Because I know like divers can be a whole nother
Chris: we're Yeah. 99% mallard here.
John: So,
Chris: so it's, it's for me, it, my ponds. Yeah. It's pretty rare that I see divers.
John: So, just to be clear, so generally speaking, if you're hunting divers and I have limited experience with divers, but they do get a, a stigma of not tasting as good as puddle ducks.
Chris: Right.
John: Some of the best eating ducks like canvasback is a diving duck. So that kind of. You know, neutralizes that argument. I love eating redhead ducks. Mm-hmm. They're really good. Um, other people have had great experience with other diver ducks, but generally speaking, if you do, uh, a lot of the flavor does stay in the fat of that bird, right?
Yes. So, um, kouts get a bad wrap. I like kouts. Um, but generally I skin and I take the fat off. 'cause I'm trying to maximize, I'm trying to neutralize as many of those potential off-putting potential, off-putting flavors because it's all based on diet.
Chris: Yeah.
John: Is that Cuda in Arkansas just eating rice in the rice fields or is it eating crawfish, you know, ca uh, California pintails versus Louisiana pen tail.
Um, so yeah,
Chris: absolutely. Yeah. I love it. Um, anything else you wanna talk about as far as utilizing the, the bird? I know um, you said you're not a huge fan of the gizzards. Um, I don't do much with duck gizzards again, just 'cause they're so tiny. But, um, I love, love some goose gizzards and I almost do like a, a pseudo dumpling ish.
Dish out of them where I'm, you know, boiling them, kind of steaming and then like really crisping up that one edge. And it just gets, if you boil 'em long enough and steam 'em long enough, like they just get like really creamy inside. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. Then they get that crispy exterior, like, oh my gosh. But they are gnarly.
Like when you pull it out of the bird, you cut that thing open, it's full of gravel and grass and it just looks like sin.
John: Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting organ.
Chris: Yes.
John: It's very interesting. I would say a coot, for those that don't know a coot gizzard is huge. Really? Okay. For the size of the bird, a coot.
Gizzard is huge. Maybe the same size as a goose.
Chris: No,
John: I'm not, not lying. I
Chris: mean, a goose is like a crab apple. Like that thing is huge.
John: A a coots pretty much right there. Mm. A coots pretty much right there. So the best way I've ever had gizzards, and I did not make this myself, nor were they waterfowl, gizzards.
Similar to your point, but pressure cooked so they get super tender.
Chris: Yes.
John: And then dredged and deep fried. Yes. So you get that crunch. All the word. Yeah. The crisp, but it's still creamy. And it's a weird word to use, but if you know what we're talking about. Yeah. Just like that, that liver in that HLT or I've used, I don't get off topic again, but dear hearts in sausage making.
Yeah. I'll do like a 50 50 deer meat, dear heart ratio of meat. Okay. Added with fat. And it's, it's just a creamy, nice texture that, if you know what I'm talking about. It is ish.
Chris: It's, yeah. It's an internal organs. Yeah. I think the, the creamy descriptions not off-putting.
John: Yeah. Not to me. 'cause I, yeah, it's
Chris: if I feel like internal organs more
John: for me to eat.
Chris: Yes. Yes. Uh, well, yeah. What, what else do you have to think here on, on duck hunting in general? Um, I guess you're talking about some of the, the taboos. Um, soaking in milk, soaking in water. I, I do like to soak my goose. Uh, I don't ever typically soak ducks. Definitely not the breast. Um, rarely the legs. Maybe if it's shot up I might soak the legs.
But Goose, I've, I've had a lot of, a lot of success, um, soaking those breasts overnight. And just again, if you need to change the water because it pulls too much of that, you know, myoglobin blood, um, out of it, um, yeah, change the water, keep it fresh. Um, yeah, that definitely, that tames down that flavor quite a bit.
John: So I guess I am showing my bias too, 'cause I kind of forget sometimes 'cause I just take things for granted. But like, I utilize that game bird and poultry brine for waterfowl especially, but especially Goose. 'cause everyone loves, or everyone talks about how they love, uh, goose pastrami. Um, so goose pastrami is like a love go pastrami.
It's like a four day process though, right? Yes. Like you gotta get the bird, then you gotta get the salt cure and all that. You gotta have pink salt, you gotta have all this stuff. And you know, it's, I love it too, but it's a lot of work. What I found is if you brine it in this. You get the same cured goose breast result, but you can put a little bit of a flavor profile on the outside as whatever it is you like, you know, if it's a steak seasoning or maybe it's a barbecue seasoning.
Um, but so I don't soak 'em in water for the sake of, because I think the meat needs it, let's say. Sure. But I do brine it for, on large giant Canada geese. I mean every bit of two days. B brining. Okay. If, if not three days for those large ones. Right? Yeah. On a smaller, younger goose, you could probably get away with a day and a half to two days.
Um, but I'm brining that because of, I mean, yes, it drastically changes the flavor of the goose. I had a breast the other day. I, a gentleman bring some over to me. Um, and there's that membrane that runs through a lot of birds that goes right through the center of the breast. Yeah. It starts at the armpit and it's real thick there.
And I always kind of chop that off the best I can. 'cause that's a very inedible piece right there at the armpit where it meets the, the wing. But then that thins out and runs through there. And I shaved and created two chunks of meat from that goose breast and I brined it and I seared it in a pan just like I would a backstrap.
And I cooked it and it's on one of my recent posts and my kids legit thaw. It was Dear meat.
Chris: Oh, it's crazy
John: good. It tasted like deer meat. It looked like deer meat. You know, if, if you cook a medium rare goose or medium goose specifically medium rare, it's like purple on the inside if you don't brine it or anything.
It's kind of an off putting color. Uh, and you're really getting full on goose flavor. Yeah. You're getting full on duck flavor. And that's not for everybody. So that brine is a. It's not just salt and water, it, there's flavors in there and it's, it's amazing. But if, even if you did just do the salt, like I mentioned earlier, a quarter cup of salt to a quart of water and brine that bird.
Yeah. Um, again, I'm not doing it for the sake of soaking it. You gotta remember that if you do soak it that way in the salt water and then you take it out a couple months later and you salt it heavily and you're gonna go grill it, you forgot. You brid it. So right
Chris: on the bag. Yeah. What you did.
John: Yeah. It before you before freeze it.
So you wanna be very light and strategic with your rub. Absolutely. And try to get a rub that maybe doesn't even have salt in it, it's just the other flavors.
Chris: Yes. Yes. Um, yeah. Steak, eating goose breast, like steak top tier. Um, and meat eater has a chutney recipe that I am in love with.
John: Nice.
Chris: It's just honey green apples, raisins, golden raisins, cherries, um, and apple cider vinegar.
And you just, you cook that down, make it real sticky and dense and just put that on top of the goose breast. Oh my gosh.
John: So this all sounds really like. High class, you know, chutney and people are like, what's a chutney? Right? Oh, but you can't not try that and then say that goose breast tastes bad because when, not bad when you try it, but if you cook it properly, one, it tastes great
Chris: that that's the ticket right there.
Cook it properly.
John: But if you can't cook it properly and you add something like a sweet chutney to it, it's amazing. So I buy one, and I don't know the name brand, but I buy it from my local grocery store and it's called a apple and plum chutney. Ooh. Yeah. And I take it to my events and it's really, really, really good with smoked meats.
So I have a charcuterie board and I'll have that on there. And it's just a great pairing, just like a lot of wild game is great with Asian flavors, just that that sweet component added in specifically with waterfowl is a great neutralizer of flavors maybe that certain people may not like. Um,
Chris: well it's just a beautiful combination.
Yeah. That fruits and waterfowl company. Yeah. And
John: if you don't wanna make a chutney buy. Just buy one and pair it with it so you can enjoy these birds that you're hunting. 'cause I do believe many water Fowlers just it, they're not putting any effort into what is, other than what is legally required. Right.
Yeah. And there's maybe some people that don't even do that. And there's all sorts of stuff on social media that I try to just, my page is to inspire them and give them easy, approachable ways to just maximize all that work. Yeah. You know, goose, especially, there used to be a time in Ohio where you could kill, when I first started, you kill two birds.
Chris: Okay?
John: So you go through all this work, set up your decoys, you know, whatever, two birds a lot, geez. And then if you scouted, well here come your two birds, bang, bang. And you're done. And, and there's a lot of people that get a lot of thrill outta that. For me,
Chris: yeah.
John: I try to like work smarter, not harder. So like.
I, I'd love now that we can get five birds, it makes it a lot more useful. Yeah. If you can get into some birds like that, uh, a lot of times geese for us are like, uh, secondary. Like they just happen to fly over us as we're duck hunting, but
Chris: Okay.
John: Um, but yeah, just utilize those legs at a minimum and you can just low and slow 'em in a crock pot.
And you can make barbecue goose. You can make pot pie, you can make buffalo dip. You can make whatever you would normally make with shredded meat.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I saw a post online just the other day about, I forget what state it was, but it was just two dumpsters at the back of a restaurant just loaded with Mississippi with no geese.
John: Yeah. It was in Mississippi, like 200 of 'em.
Chris: Oh. It was insane.
John: They didn't clean the birds and despite, despite
Chris: nothing was taken,
John: despite what you may believe to be legal or illegal in regards to snow geese and how we have a spring conservation order and they're detrimental to the tundra and all that, that's all true.
These birds were not killed during the conservation order. So they
Chris: Okay.
John: They, they still apply to, 'cause that's in the spring. So it still applies that you have to utilize that meat and at a minimum, I believe it's just the breast meats all that's legally required to take. Um, I know that they're still ongoing.
I don't have all the details, but I will tell you regardless whether they're snow geese, Canada geese or whatever, um, there are just water fowlers who have not been raised or mentored correctly into the waterfowl world. Yeah. And you should really only shoot what you plan to eat. Um, in regards to the conservation order.
I mean, sometimes if you're in a Flyway, you might be killing 200 birds. And it also, with the conservation order, you may not be legally required to take any of the meat. You have to dispose of them properly. Um, and I get you're kind of hunting for conservation, not for eating. I totally get all that. Um, but that, that aside, take some of those birds and make jerky of at a minimum, right?
Yeah. Um, because again, goose snow, gee, specifically there's gotta be, gets a bad rap
Chris: some places to donate, right? Like, like you do with deer. Like can't you?
John: So a lot of times what I've heard is, is uh, processors don't want to process that meat. That's a lot of
Chris: work.
John: Has nothing to do with that. They don't want that shot pellet, we talked about that risk.
Nice little callback there. They don't want that shot pellet I see. Going into their big commercial grinders and that grinder costs how much money that commercial Yeah, a little bit more. And so, um, and there's, there's all kinds of other stuff like avian flu and other things you may not want to contaminate with, but you know, uh, again, on topic, but I'm gonna pivot.
I've only ever killed one coyote and I would've loved if she would've been a little more pretty and I could have got her tanned, but she wasn't the prettiest gal at the ball. Not that she was anything wrong with her. Um, but it was late January, I think it was actually the last day of January and. I end up eating her backstraps.
I'm like, well, if I can't tanner, I'm gonna at least eat some of this meat. Um, and again, I think I did a poll, like less than 5% of people have ever even tried Coyote.
Chris: I haven't
John: tried. Um, and like of the three people who said they had were the people who inspired me to eat it. So it's, um, but I made miss, what'd you think?
I made Mississippi pot roast with it after I'd kind of pan seared some really, really well, 'cause, you know, trinos and all that. Well,
Chris: yeah,
John: it tasted like overcooked deer meat. But that's because I overcooked the heck out of it. Yeah. I did it on purpose. Right. But we made Mississippi pot roast with it and my kids destroyed it again.
Chris: Nice.
John: They thought, they thought it was deer meat. I dunno why they thought that, but they, it chewed better. The muscle fibers of that backstrap were different than say the shanks we normally use from deer. So it was a different mouthfeel taste wise, tasted just like. Oh, dear me. I mean, I said, someone said, someone said you could put your leather boot, you know, your iris setter boot in that crockpot and it's gonna taste good for Mississippi pot roast.
Right, right. But I would, I would 10 outta 10 times again, eat a coyote in a crockpot Mississippi pot roast style. Yeah. And it's pinned to the top of my page. Nice. That middle post is coyote emo. It looks like a pot roast.
Chris: Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's incredible.
John: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. Back, yeah. Back, back to all the, um, food waste and whatnot, just like they're, they're gorgeous meals if they just listen to half of our conversation.
Yeah. Um, and just cook it properly. Like, you know, how many meals were in that dumpster? Like you could have fed 400 people
John: Yeah.
Chris: With all those geese in that dumpster. And it's just, to me, that's just, that's mind boggling that, that, that much meat would go to waste. And it's, I know it's a ton of work, but like,
John: just as hunters, I mean, if you're killing, if you're killing that bird or deer or whatever, you should do your best to honor that bird.
If you don't have the capacity in the kitchen to do it, then. Get it processed in a way that is a way in which you will consume. Yeah. If that's all jerky or if it's all summer sausage or it's whatever it may be. Um,
Chris: goose summer sausage. Yeah. That's,
John: oh, it's really good. And again, that's different kind of going back to that
Chris: crazy
John: different creamy
Chris: good Yeah.
John: Flavor. It's not creamy in a bad way. It's just, it's a nice, it's
Chris: different
John: creamy mouthfeel when you're chewing on that meat. Yeah. It's, it's just really good. And you add some cheddar cheese in there. Some high temp cheese. Yes. 'cause again, yeah. There's a lot of people who just don't even utilize deer and other things as far as that meat waste.
Chris: Yeah.
John: Um, there's a lot of resources out there to cook Wild game. Absolutely. Over the last 10 years that I've seen Instagram grow and social media grow, there's all different cooking styles out there for you. Yes. Very approachable cooking styles. Um, very high-end chefy type cooking styles. Um, if you've got skills in the kitchen or limited skills in the kitchen, you should be able to find ways.
Yeah. To make really tasty meals, you just gotta have the patience to do it.
Chris: Yes. And I would say caveat to that is just be mindful of where you're getting these recipes. I've had a lot of comments recently about AI and AI recipes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And them just being wildly off base. Recently I did a post about those, uh, deer Trotter stock, that deer Trotter stock, and a follower wrote back in and said, Hey, like, I googled a recipe, and like I could tell it came from AI and it told me to use borax in the recipe
John: because it was mixing, like cleaning them probably
Chris: for like, yeah.
So I'm like, Hmm. Is this AI trying to like call the herd here a little bit or. But be mindful, like make sure, even if it's a real person, I'm not pointing at John, uh, because Oh yeah, sure. I, yeah,
John: I was, I'll say
Chris: something. There's a lot of bloggers out there who will just generate these AI crap recipes and repost 'em, follow somebody like John, who is like a legit human be gee, writing these recipes that he is trying himself.
John: Sure. Well I really appreciate that. I've, so I've never even used AI for anything work related, personal related. Um, that's why I really hate writing recipes 'cause I, I just find it really hard to take how I made something and put it to paper. 'cause I don't really, I'm not saying I don't know how I made it, but there's no rhyme or reason.
I just, I've cooked for over 24 years now. Again, started probably my third year of college and I've just learned how to cook. It's like anything. And once you understand something. You just do it. I was giving someone,
Chris: but with, with wild games especially, it's, it's, it's a different thing that you almost need to be fluid.
'cause every deer's not the same. Every duck's not the same. We mentioned puddle ducks, diver ducks. You're gonna cook 'em very differently. Even
John: the same duck regionally can be different.
Chris: Yes. Rice fed mallard versus
a
John: corn melon young. A young goose.
Chris: Yeah.
John: A 10-year-old goose.
Chris: So you need to be fluid.
John: Yeah.
Chris: And your recipe over in Ohio is probably not gonna be the same as, you know, the, the goose I'm gonna shoot here in Indiana.
John: Sure. A lot of, a lot of, a lot of, once you have practice and if you are an avid waterfowl hunter listening to this, 'cause I've had avid water, Fowlers tell me this. I'm talking to the ones who are really just stacking birds. Hunt in, hunt out when they're field dressing birds, whether it be ducks, but specifically geese.
You can feel whether that goose breast is firm or it's just softer. Now that could be because of age, it could be. In the way that it died, did it die a quick death? Was it an injured goose that you had to run down for 200 yards and it's got a lot of, you know, things happening and stress. Um, but when you process those birds, you can determine how easy was it to pull the skin back or how hard is that meat?
Um, you know, if you're dealing with a deer, just because it's a fawn doesn't necessarily innately mean that it's gonna be tender. Right. If it was stressed out when it died, you, it could totally be tougher than it should be. And that just really comes with practice in the kitchen.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. The buck I shot this year was the oldest biggest rudies smelling buck I have ever shot.
And just for whatever luck when I shot him, he barely moved and he, he didn't run, he didn't buck, he didn't do anything. I thought I missed.
John: Yeah.
Chris: He walks 20 yards staggered and fell over. Yeah. And he has been some of the best eating I've ever had.
John: Very nice. Yeah.
Chris: From a huge old ready buck. Like
John: yeah.
There's a lot of misnomers out there in regards to it's crazy to ready bucks.
Chris: Crazy. Yeah.
John: Field prep is huge. A lot of people carry smells with them that they smell during that whole process.
Chris: Yes.
John: They carry it with them mentally when they pull that they have almost already got it predetermined that this buck is gonna taste this way.
And, and, and it's just a real thing. I'm guilty of it too. When I get done processing ducks, geese, I'm not touching a goose or a duck. I'm not cooking duck for a week or more. Um, it's
Chris: gotta smell. Yeah. The inside of a, a waterfowl. Yes.
John: It's just like, I'm gonna let things simmer. I eat some chicken for a week, you know?
Um, until I can just get back in a good place. Now I'm,
Chris: it's a real thing.
John: I've been around long enough to know that I can get back to that place. Some people who aren't real comfortable in that world, they never let go of those smells, those sight the sounds, et cetera. And that just comes with, you know, I don't wanna say maturity, but it's like, hey.
This food's good. I promise you. Try. Gotta
Chris: compartmentalize those orders and those
John: Yeah. Try this food. I promise you, you're gonna enjoy it.
Chris: Yes, yes. Well, dude, any other parting thoughts? I think my only other question, um, in our notes, we have the lymph node, um, and we know on white tail there is, there are some things we need to watch for.
I wanna circle back to cooking whole birds.
John: Yep.
Chris: Which I've done. I've plucked in cooked whole birds. Never successfully.
John: Sure.
Chris: Either the legs come out wonderful and the breast is way overdone or vice versa. Is there anything in a bird that we need to be watchful? Like if we do, again, we don't recommend it, but if you do wanna cook a whole goose or a whole wood duck or whatever, like, are there any glands or anything weird we need to try and pull from that bird?
John: No, I don't believe so. The um, if you, if you don't cut up like what I, I believe they call the pope's nose, but the little, the butt right. There's a little oil there. Is that the Yeah,
Chris: the oil gland,
John: the oil thing right above the butt. Most times you're, you're taking that off when you process that whole bird.
If you're, if you can take just the oil gland off and you can use the, the butt, which has a lot of fat in it to render that and use that for cooking. Great.
Chris: You take the gland off though, like
John: the oil, it's, it's a small little, like you'll see where there's some feathers that are just kind of like pinched
Chris: together.
I've, I've always cut that out just because it's, you know, it's, it's a gland. Air quotes, like, I don't know what it is. It's, it looks nasty. It's
John: an oiler. So if you ever see ducks pruning themselves or pruning and, um, you know, the reason they're waterproof, uh, you just see, like, if you see those really good photographers and videographers, specifically videographers, they capture that water just beating off of the bird.
It's because their feathers have oil on it, and it's from that, it's from that oil. They'll reach their wing back there, they'll get the oil on their wing, and then they'll put it on their head and
Chris: Yeah.
John: I mean, oil's waterproof, right? Um, so yeah, there's that. I was gonna say, when you,
Chris: sorry, you definitely wanna cut that off.
John: Yeah.
Chris: Like if you do cook the, the carcass for stock,
John: I, I don't, again, I don't think you're gonna, there's, I don't think there's anything that's necessarily, that's gonna notice. It's not gonna
Chris: be like weird off flavors. I don't, it's not gonna kill you, obviously.
John: I, I really don't believe it's gonna kill you.
I do
Chris: believe because it's just surrounded in fat and it almost kills me every time I cut off that gland, it's like, man, I'm losing like a tablespoon of fat here.
John: Yeah. So the, the gland isn't all that big itself, I don't believe. But that said, and I hope everyone takes this the right way, but most people don't have a refined palate enough to determine that that is the actual pinpoint factor of Sure.
Any offputting taste. Okay. The offputting taste came from either you overcooked it, you didn't drain it properly, um, you just didn't cook it properly. Yeah. That there's always, in my opinion, there's other reasons why there's an offputting taste or maybe it just tastes like waterfowl and you expect it to taste like beef.
Chris: Yeah.
John: And so your expectation is just off. Um, the one thing I would say to watch out for though is when you are pulling the livers out of birds, this would be any bird. There's a little green bile sack that is connected to it. That you don't want that. So be very careful. And
Chris: that's on every critter? Yeah.
Not just water.
John: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a gallbladder. Is it the gall? Gall? I've always said it's gallbladder. And so it's just this little green, it looks like a green ink sack.
Chris: Yeah.
John: On a bird. And when you, I, I kind of call it the claw method. You know the claw, you go the arcade and you, you're going down in there.
Yeah. And so you kind of go in with this claw approach to grab the liver and you kind of pinch your fingertips underneath of it to kind of pinch and pull and it pinches it off of that bird. And it's always one lobe or the other. One lobe doesn't have it. And the other lobe is connected with that green sack.
And it's not, again, mercury, it's not just like gonna kill you on touch, but it definitely is something I would not want to be touching. Sometimes if you pull the livers, because
Chris: that could be pleasant if you eat, it'll say that.
John: Sometimes when you pull the levers, livers off, you'll see actually a green tone to the liver itself.
Of a
Chris: stain. Yeah.
John: Yeah. A stain. It's all it is, is a stain. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But it's, it's where that gallbladder was sitting. Just make sure you pinch that off. Otherwise, whole birds. Another way that I found to make 'em. More successful. Again, you're eating that bird, you weren't successful, but you're eating it.
Yeah. It's just not as pleasant as some of the other recipes you've made. But one thing I found is to spatchcock that bird.
Chris: Yes.
John: It, the cook time reduces. Um, you're allowed, you're able to get it hot like way hotter to crisp the skin a little better. Um, it's just not traditional for most recipes. I mean, I do that with Thanksgiving, Turkey too.
I no longer do a big giant, whole traditional Turkey on the table. It's spatchcocked
Chris: got a spatchcock or Turkey. Yes.
John: And it's amazing
Chris: on the smoker. Yeah. It just opens it up for more flavor, I think. Especially if you do smoke.
John: Yeah. If you're not. And it allows the salt to get in there a little better from both sides and um, you know, just again, I think you used the word earlier, but just Yeah.
Get outta your comfort zone. Um, don't do things just because everyone's always said this is what you gotta do. Right. Just because some people say, oh, you just breast those birds. Everything else is garbage.
Chris: Yeah.
John: They've never probably tried eight outta 10 people who've told you that the legs aren't worth it.
Have probably never tried to cook 'em. Or they were introduced or
Chris: they did and they cooked it like breast meat and Yeah.
John: And it's tough and so on. So, uh, there was connective tissue. Uh, someone asked me, what's the trick to de-boning these legs? There's no trick. Ooh, just deone them. And there was some little tendons in there.
They're very soft tendons. Um, when you see it, you're gonna see these little white lines in your meat. I know what they are and I know how they taste, so they don't bother me a bit. They shouldn't bother you either, but just know that they're in there and they're gonna be fine.
Chris: Yeah. Hot tip there. Were you talking about the way to, to get those tendons out of legs?
Yeah.
John: Yep.
Chris: Where you just
John: southernness media
Chris: where the leg turns orange. Yeah. That, that joint.
John: Um, so it's not that. Or maybe it is that joint. Yeah, it's that knee joint. Yeah. And you just kind of score the skin on the outside with your knife without cutting the tendon. You break the knuckle a little bit.
Chris: You almost don't even have to score it. Like if you, well, if you take the skin off really well, um,
John: well, a lot of times, so this is the first tip. This is the first thing I do before I breast the bird, whatever. Oh, okay. I think it's easier to do this. Tell us
Chris: your way and then I'll tell you what I did.
John: So I found that people struggle to do this and it's because oftentimes they take the breast out, they do this, they, and then next thing you know, they try to do that tendon thing and there's just not as much to grab onto and get that leverage.
Chris: Sure.
John: So if I'm going to do that, I didn't do that with these birds 'cause I had a lot of birds to do and I'm like, you know what? It'll be all right 'cause I know how I didn't
Chris: notice '
John: cause I know how I'm cooking it. But, um, if you're gonna do a grilled leg method or something hot and fast, where those tendons are gonna be more of an issue, um, you just, what I do is when I get that bird, I'm staring at it.
The first thing I do is I score that skin. And I kind of break the knuckle and I just twist about eight times. Like you're tying a fishing line knot, like a cinch knot, and then you're kind of pinching the meat right at, say the base of the, the calf muscle of that bird. And you're pulling that foot back and you're gonna see those tendons, most of 'em, not all of 'em, but most of them come out of that duck.
It works for pheasants and upland birds too, just not as well, because some of those can get kind of calcified and harder. Um, but for ducks it works amazing. Geese, it works too.
Chris: Yes.
John: Um, for this recipe, I knew it wasn't necessarily needed, so I just cut the legs right off. Um, but that's the first thing I do.
And then I go in for the breast and then I go in for the legs. I just pop 'em through and I, you know, skin 'em out. And then I kind of, uh, like I'm pulling the mouth open of an alligator. I just rip that carcass up and the heart's staring at me, the liver's staring at me. And, uh, if my daughter or somebody wants the little curl feathers of a Drake mallard, I'm gonna pluck those.
Um, that's how I do it.
Chris: Absolutely. Yeah. A hundred percent worth doing that tip. Uh, the tendon tip. And, um, I just do it a little bit later in this stage, so I take the skin off, I take the leg off the carcass, and that's when I just, and I don't even score, you know, where the orange leg starts, but I just twist it and it just kind of, you know, all that scaly orange foot skin kind of comes with it.
Nice. You twist it and just pulls straight out, um, much pleasant eating experience. Yeah. If you're not gonna cook it low, slow.
John: Yeah. And yeah. So it just takes away some of those things that would hinder you if you, if you cooked it hot and fast, it would just not be as tender. But if it's not there to begin with, now you're just eating almost like a chicken wing.
Chris: Yeah.
John: Kind of
Chris: crazy. Good.
John: Yeah. And again, just try it. Just try it because you killed it, you processed it, and you cooked it. It's gonna taste better to you than it is anyone else in that house.
Chris: Yes.
John: That's a,
Chris: that's
John: a real thing.
Chris: Like said, we, we mentioned this earlier in the episode. I mean, you got a bag in there that gave, I mean it fed you and me earlier today.
Like it's a solid appetizer. It could be a whole meal
John: it by
Chris: itself. It totally
John: could. I I think it just depends on whether you put more meat in a dumpling or less. Yeah. Or you just make more of them.
Chris: Yeah.
John: But it was just a standard, um, sandwich size, zip zipper bag. Right. I would call it like, you could put a, a piece of bread in there and have your bologna sandwich and there's just a standard piece of um,
Chris: yeah.
It's a lot of meat that you're leaving in the woods if you're not taking legs.
John: Yeah. And especially that's
Chris: just duck.
John: Yeah.
Chris: Not again. Goose is a whole different ballgame.
John: And goose eyes are so good. So good. They're so good. And a wild Turkey just 'cause we're on the topic.
Chris: So Good.
John: There's like three pounds of meat on an adult gobbler.
And again, it's not the same as a breast or you've got a low and slow it. Um, and I've got some great recipes out there. I'm sure Chris does too. Um. There's some popular ones out there for carnitas. I'm
Chris: gonna say if I shoot another Turkey, 'cause I've been trying for ages and I just can't connect. Uh, but white, I'm gonna do, I've got a white chicken chili recipe that's beautiful.
But I wanna do that with a Turkey leg. So wild Turkey, white chili. Oh my gosh. It's be gorgeous. It'd
John: be amazing. Yeah,
Chris: that's, I just need to connect and it,
John: it'll make, like, you can take that, you can then freeze it and, you know, thaw it out later. The soup. Yes. And so it could easily make four meals for a family of four, you know, young, a young family
Chris: easily,
John: uh, take it to, to Turkey camp.
Take it to duck camp, deer camp, whatever. Yes. Oh my gosh.
Chris: Save your legs. You do it wrong. Well, John, any other, uh, thoughts in your head right here? We're kind of, we're, we're a little over time.
John: No,
Chris: I, I, I enjoyed the conversation. It's been a great conversation. Yeah,
John: I enjoyed it. Thanks for having me on.
Chris: Anytime, sir.
John: Yeah, I mean, no, I just really appreciate it. I then we covered it pretty well.
Chris: We did, yes. And uh, to be honest, you kind of already gave us a recipe. So we're just gonna flash forward, um, to earlier in the episode when you're talking about these, um, wonton, what do you calling them?
John: I think they're probably technically duck wontons.
Um, it's
Chris: wonton wrappers.
John: It's a wonton rapper in this case, which makes it a wonton. They make dumpling rapper. Yeah, they make dumpling wrappers, which would technically make it more of a dumpling,
Chris: but duck dumpling sounds way better. So
John: yeah, it does. It sounds way better. And so it's just, it is what it is.
You can, Chris's priority showed pictures of it. It's, yes. Call it what? And I put that in my post. You call it whatever you want. Za pot sticker dumpling wonton.
Chris: I don't, they're gonna disappear. That's the only thing that's guaranteed.
John: They're so good. Um, watch out. When you bite into it, there might be some juice.
Um, you know, it could be a little messy, so, you know, just eat with caution, but
Yes.
Chris: But make them,
John: they're del
Chris: crazy. Crazy. Good. That's gonna be our recipe to close the episode. So, uh, go to John's page, I'm sure again, it's gonna be. Towards the top of your feed at something. Um, yep.
John: I can share it with you too.
We can put it in the, uh, link Podcast. Do show podcast for sure. Yep. Just always know that. I don't take, I don't actually measure things when I'm cooking, so I give you that basis.
Chris: Trust your hearts when you're cooking. Just watch the salt.
John: Yeah. Watch the salt, watch the fresh ginger. There's, you know, some other things in there.
I
Chris: you can't have too much ginger. You, you could if it's fresh.
John: Yeah, yeah. Fresh ginger is what I used. Yeah. And, uh, so a little goes a long way, but I tried to preempt up that in that recipe. And I don't, like I said, I don't write recipes out very often, but I, I, this is how important this recipe is to me, because if you make this recipe, you're inherently gonna keep more duck legs for
Chris: sure.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. A
John: hundred percent.
Chris: Uh, where can people find you? Is it wild game, cook everywhere on,
John: all on all platforms. Yep.
Chris: TikTok, Instagram,
John: web. Uh, yeah. Mostly it's Instagram, Facebook, YouTube.
Chris: Okay.
John: TikTok, if they don't take my videos off, um, we'll see. Those are the platforms. Uh, I have a website, wild game cook.com.
You can see how to hire me for private events Yeah. And things of that nature. Um, but yeah, just reach out. I'm not any sort of crazy celebrity. Yes. You reach out and message me. I'm gonna write you back and give you the exact answer to the question, or I might say, I don't have that answer. Reach out to Chris or you know, someone or reach out to someone who does.
That's more of their style.
Chris: Yeah.
John: I had one the other day. Have you ever cooked with, um, it was Whitefish and some other, uh, mutton. It was mutton or lamb or something. Okay. I just flat told him. I was like, I, I don't, I don't have any experience of that, but yeah.
Chris: Oh man.
John: Appreciate it, Chris. It was
Chris: probably, yeah.
I say it was great. Yeah. If you don't follow John, please do. And just Yeah. Write in. Yeah. Tell us, tell John what you think of his dishes and give him thoughts or if you've got a good leg
John: opinions. If you've got a good leg dish. What do you do with your legs?
Chris: Yeah, what do you do with your legs? Tell us, um, goose legs.
What I do is just. Goose leg, apple juice, apple cider. Slow cooker.
John: Yep.
Chris: Just
John: I've done that too, but with even, uh, funny enough, Dr. Pepper.
Chris: Ooh. Okay.
John: It's been a while since I did it.
Chris: Okay.
John: Um, but
Chris: yeah, shredded.
John: Put sandwich, Sprite. I, we did one Sprite. Yeah. It's just a way to help break it down better. Yeah.
Barbecue sauce. It's a crowd pleaser for sure. Yes. And generally all the shot pellets fall to the bottom of your slow cooker, so There you go. It's easy to find.
Chris: Yes, sir. There you go. Well, thanks so much, John. We will, uh, tune in and report back with our findings.
John: Appreciate it, Chris.
Chris: Thank you.
John: Yeah, it, it's a very important topic, right? It's like, I think it's very real. You said 50%, I think it's, it's 5% of, uh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. My circle correct, correct.
Chris: Is not normal. No.
John: In my circle, despite what you may think is that other circle.
Chris: Okay.
John: Like they all, I have guys that kill 'em and all they do is make it all into jerky.
Chris: Mm.
John: And I, there's nothing wrong. That's Everybody does. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. Like jerky's good, but it's like, don't you get tired?
