A few weeks ago, a group of my friends went on an upland bird hunt out in Virginia. Somehow, I was volunteered to do the cooking for them after the hunt.
They dropped off their cooler full of ringneck, chukar, and bobwhite, and I went to work.
Using some inspiration from what I had around the house, and what I've picked up watching endless hours of Food Network and Top Chef, we had a pretty amazing meal. I'll have recipes for everything here soon, but here was the menu:
Orange, Sage, Cider Roasted Partridge
For the Partridge, I brushed the bird with melted butter that had sage, orange zest, thyme, salt and pepper and roasted it with some orange slices, onions, garlic, and a little bit of apple cider.
Pan-Seared Puttanesca Pheasant
For the larger, non-shot-up Pheasant, I tossed the birds with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, rosemary and thyme. Pan seared it on each side in hot oil and then baked it with Wegman's Puttanesca sauce.
Grilled Bacon-Wrapped Apple Quail
For the Quail. I seasoned the inside with some salt and pepper, and put a slice of apple inside it. I put some more salt and pepper on the outside and wrapped the birds in bacon. We grilled them, and as we did, we glazed them Ad Hoc Apple Bacon BBQ sauce.
Pheasant Nuggets
Anything that was too shot-up, I made nuggets. Soaking the birds in buttermilk, dredged in flour with some paprika, salt and pepper, dipped in an egg wash, and covered panko with paprika, garlic and chili powder and fried.
Grilled Venison
I couldn't have a wild game dinner with nothing that I killed, so I pulled out some venison tenderloin from my doe that I shot on the opening day in Pennsylvania. For this, all I did was salt, pepper, grilled to medium rare…Mother Nature did the rest.
Epic and awesome dinner!!
