Passport to Texas

Chef Jacques-Pepin, photo KQED

Food Week: A French Chef Talks Wild Game Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

If you watch PBS television cooking shows, you’ve probably seen this man:

My name is Jacques Pepin.

80-year-old Jacques Pepin is a classically trained French chef, author, and PBS cooking show host. He says in his youth, most of the meat he ate came from wild game.

We follow the season, and the season in the fall in France we have the rabbit and the pheasant and the stuff. You go to market and see the game hanging.

Jacques Pepin’s final PBS series is Heart & Soul. Before that, it was Essential Pepin. Like all his shows, Essential Pepin included a companion book and DVD that was going to include how to skin a rabbit after harvest.

But the skinning of the rabbit, they have removed it already so you’re not going to see it. And I knew it. They got berserk when they saw it. They said, “Oh my God!” Well, it’s good to get closer to Mother Nature and to realize where your food comes from.

It may seem gruesome, but the alternative, says Chef Pepin, is what we have now: generations of people who only recognize food if it’s in neatly cut pieces and wrapped in plastic.

I mean, this is pretty scary when you think of it.

Sign up for the Hunt Texas e-newsletter on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website, and learn about hunting for your next meal.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Cold Venison Salad, image courtesy http://www.cookmonkeys.com/

Food Week: Game Traditions from Mexico Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Before domestication of livestock, wild game was the primary protein for humans on both side of what is now the US/Mexican border. In Mexico, venison was of particular importance.

Venison is especially important in a ritual sense as well as a culinary sense.

Karen Hursh Graber is senior Food Editor of the internet magazine Mexico Connect.

The word ‘venison’ in English, and the word ‘venado’ in Spanish – are both from the Latin word ‘venari’, which is the verb ‘to hunt.’ So, that’s pretty impressive that the word for deer is the same as the word for hunt. It just shows the symbolic hunting imagery of deer in both cultures.

Mexicans, unlike Americans, are more sparing in their use of venison – and all meat wild and domestic – in their recipes: such as Salpicon De Venado.

Instead of serving a huge hunk of meat, they’ll serve small pieces, and put it in a taco or in a stew. Salpicon is like a cold meat salad – it’s a venison salad. It’s dressed with herbs and spices and they serve it is tacos.

Find Karen Hursh Graber’s recipe for Cold Venison Salad at passporttotexas.org.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
____________________________________________________

Shredded Venison Salad: Salpicon De Venado
by Karen Hursh Graber © 2005
http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/2381-shredded-venison-salad-salpicon-de-venado

This dish is found on restaurant menus throughout Mexico, but particularly in the western part of the country and in the Yucatan, where it is called zic de venado. This recipe is a good buffet dish, to be piled on tostadas or served with warm tortillas and habanero salsa. It makes an attractive presentation served on a bed of mesclun greens. Following are two variations on the traditional recipe, one savory and one sweet-and-hot.

Ingredients:

2 pounds venison, cooked and shredded (venison is lean and shreds nicely, like flank or skirt steak)
juice of 4 bitter (Seville) oranges or use half sweet oranges and half limes
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro
1/2 red onion, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped radishes
salt to taste

Preparation:

Place the venison in a non-reactive bowl. Mix the remaining ingredients and let them rest for 15 minutes to combine the flavors. Add the mixture to the venison and serve immediately or refrigerate and bring to room temperature at serving time.

Serves 8-10 as part of a multi-course buffet or as an appetizer.

Variation I:

Omit the radishes and add ½ cup chopped green olives and 1 firm-ripe avocado, diced.

Variation II:

Omit the radishes and add 1 green mango, diced, 1 diced plantain and 2 (or more, to taste) Serrano chiles, seeded and diced.

Susan Ebert, from The Field to Table Cookbook, Welcome Books 2015

Food Week: Keeping Game from Tasting Gamey Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Do you think wild game has an off taste?

Most wild game and fish, if it’s off-tasting, is ruined between the kill and the kitchen, and not in the kitchen, itself.

Susan Ebert is a hunter, angler, forager and cook; she wrote the book Field to Table, a guide to growing, procuring, and preparing seasonal foods—including wild proteins.

As good as the recipe might be, unless people know how to care for that game from the time it’s harvested, to the time that they’re ready to cook with it, they’re going to be disappointed with the results.

A meal of game begins with a clean kill, proper field dressing and getting everything on ice as soon as possible. At home…

Venison and wild duck—I will dry age those. Maybe 48 hours. Set them over a drip pan, on a rack. And let them just dry age in the refrigerator uncovered, with air circulating around them.

Ebert recommends brining rabbit and feral hog; brine can be as simple as sugar and salt dissolved in water.

Let that brine for a couple of days. Then, sear it over the grill and then either move it over indirect heat or put in it the smoker at a low temperature…

Find a recipe from Susan Ebert’s book Field to Table at passporttotexas.org

That’s our show… Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

_______________________________________________

Redbud Blossom Jelly
Yields 6 half-pints

Ingredients

• About a gallon ZipLoc bag of rebud blossoms
• 5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, strained
• 5 teaspoons Pomona Pectin© calcium water
• 5 teaspoons Pomona Pectin© pectin powder
• 2 1/2 cups organic sugar

Instructions

1. Rinse and drain the redbud blossoms, and pick out any wooden stems and bugs. Pack loosely into a half-gallon container with a tightly fitting lid and cover completely with boiling water. Let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate overnight.
2. Strain through a fine mesh sieve or double cheesecloth in the morning, pressing lightly with a wooden spoon (don’t squeeze too hard, or you will get a bitter flavor).
3. Add water, if necessary, to make 5 cups redbud juice. Pour into a large stockpot, and add the lemon juice and calcium water.
4. Prepare your hot-water-bath canner, and wash 6 half-pint jars, lids, and bands in hot, soapy water. When the canner begins to boil, put the jars in it so they stay hot. Heat the lids and bands in a small saucepan; do not boil.
5. Combine the sugar and pectin powder in a small bowl, and stir thoroughly to blend. Bring the juice to a full boil over high heat, then drift in the sugar/pectin mixture a bit at a time, stirring vigorously. Continue to stir until the mixture comes to a second boil.
6. Pour into jars, release bubbles with a plastic spatula, affix lids, and finger-tighten bands. Process for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let the jars remain in the canner for 5 minutes. Remove them to a folded towel, and let sit overnight to completely set up.
7. Store for up to a year in a cool, dark place.

Recipe from Susan Ebert, The Field to Table Cookbook

Eastern wild turkey release at Gus Engeling WMA 02-05-2014

TPW TV - Gobblers Go East Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

A group of 31 eastern wild turkeys recently released in the Angelina National Forest may not be from Texas, but they got here as fast as they could. Wildlife biologist, Jason Hardin.

Any of these birds that come into Texas from out of state, we draw blood for disease testing. We’ve been really lucky—we’ve had really healthy birds coming in. In addition to that, the University of Georgia is doing DNA on all these birds.

Each bird got banded with its own ID number, and joined a four-decades-long restocking effort.

Turkeys were historically found throughout close to 30-million acres in east Texas. So, this is part of their historic range. Around the turn of the 20th Century, we lost birds due to over harvest—primarily—European settlers coming into Texas. There were no regulations to stop them from harvesting those animals. And no law enforcement out there to enforce the few regulations that we did have.

With the last batch of 31, Texas Parks and Wildlife has introduced about 80 birds to the site. Now they’ll monitor their habitat use to determine their preferences, and to ensure their future.

From what we can tell, the birds appear to be doing pretty well. We have some of our highest populations of turkeys in east Texas on that site. So, we know that it can be very successful.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS airs a segment called Gobblers Go East the week of November 20, where you can see the rest of the story. Check your local listings.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Cecilia Nasti’s father after a pheasant hunt.

Pheasant Hunters May Expect Successful Season Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Higher rainfall averages in the Panhandle bode well for pheasant hunters this season.

This year I had actually seen clutches in July and August. The past several years I hadn’t seen any babies at all.

Todd Montandon, a biologist based in Canyon, says the area’s seen successful hatches three years in a row. Even so, pheasant continue to play a game of catch up after years of drought.

The drought really, really did a number to pheasants. 2011 through probably 2013, there just weren’t good nesting conditions at all. There wasn’t any cover. There wasn’t any water on the landscape. Very little insect production. So, those nests that were successful, the chicks just didn’t make it to adulthood, because they couldn’t find enough food.

Despite the lower numbers of the game bird, Montandon says there are enough adults on the ground for a successful hunt, if you know where to go.

Typically, we’re probably going to see the best numbers around the Dalhart, Perryton, Stratford, Gruver areas. The Herford area also holds quite a few birds, and I’ve seen some hatchlings over there this year. And then as you get down around Tulia and Plainview it starts tapering off.

Pheasant season runs December 3 through January first. Based on current surveys, the recommended bag limit is three per day. Find more information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.