Yummy game: wild rabbit, mallard, etc.

meester

I just thought I'd start a thread in ode to wild meat.

So far this season we've had:

venison
grouse
partridge
rabbit
mallard (wild duck)
pheasant

Have been meaning to get hold of some woodcock since last season, and will call the butchers on Monday to ask if they can get some in.

We had a brace of mallard for dinner today, and they are the nicest meat in the world! We've had half-a-dozen in the last few weeks.

Mallards are the village pond ducks, not sure where the wild ones come from exactly.

They are very recognisably still ducks, from the lovely fat on them, which is not as ridiculously thick as on farmed ducks (which positively ooze fat_, but crisps up beautifully when roasted and after cooking leaves a perfect layer on the sliced meat.

They are not 'high' (i.e. smelly tasting), but the meat has the most beautifully complex flavour, it has huge flavour, which I'd describe as heather-like, it just tastes wild. Like all wild birds, the breast is thin in comparison to farmed animals, but instead of the blandness of farmed chicken or duck, every bite is to be savoured.

My daughter, who is sixteen months old and isn't the biggest meat eater, was insatiable, and ate the bits from inside the carcass as well; my son, 6, also loved it.

Definitely our favourite meat!

We had less success with grouse, which were a bit too gamey, but a plain roast partridge (which we also a bought a brace of today) is delicious with redcurrant jelly.

I'm not really a fan of venison either, but pigeon breasts are obviously delicious.

Wild rabbit is definitely better than farmed, and a third of the price, delicious stewed.

Other things I haven't tried:

snipe (similar to woodcock)
English partridge (as distinct from redleg, which is much cheaper)
hare (very expensive, not sure how they differ from rabbit)
wigeon (wild duck)
teal (smallest wild duck, allegedly even yummier than mallard)

Snipe and woodcock are both cooked guts in, with the head on, split so that you can eat the brains......



Is it money-saving? Well, wild rabbits are cheap, the mallard were £3 each, and the partridges £2.50. Cheaper than any non-intensively farmed meat.

Debt_Free_Chick

If you find grouse too gamey, I doubt you'll like hare ..... very much an acquired taste, IMHO. But then again, I get all my game free from local farmers, so I have to skin & gut them myself. I think it was paunching the hare that did it for me .... the smell put me off tasting the meat!

I don't bother with the "heads on" serving for woodcock. Incidentally, on my way to work this week and I saw a dead woodcock lying in Cannon Street!!! Honestly, smack bang in the City of London .... a dead woodcock. How the hell did it get there?

meester

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

If you find grouse too gamey, I doubt you'll like hare ..... very much an acquired taste, IMHO. But then again, I get all my game free from local farmers, so I have to skin & gut them myself. I think it was paunching the hare that did it for me .... the smell put me off tasting the meat!

I don't bother with the "heads on" serving for woodcock. Incidentally, on my way to work this week and I saw a dead woodcock lying in Cannon Street!!! Honestly, smack bang in the City of London .... a dead woodcock. How the hell did it get there?

When I was in Staines last weekend, there were three mackerel (dead) in the fountain. I was quite amused.

When I came back 20 minutes later, they were gone.