Passport to Texas

Chef Jacques-Pepin, photo KQED

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This is Passport to Texas

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

My name is Jacques Pepin.

83-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.

His cooking shows still air on PBS even though he’s stopped producing them. One show that viewers never got to see featured preparing a wild rabbit. The animal had already been field dressed before it reached the kitchen studio. But that didn’t stop network executives from pitching a fit when they saw the whole, skinned animal.

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.

Hunting may not be your cup of tea, but the alternative, says Chef Pepin, is what we have now: nearly two 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.

Wild turkey cooked and ready to enjoy.

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Don’t give up on eating wild game and fish because you think it tastes funny.

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.

Starts with a clean kill, proper field dressing and getting everything on ice as soon as possible. Once you have the meat 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…

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

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

Christopher Kimball, host Milk Street on PBS

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Christopher Kimball hosted America’s Test Kitchen, Cook’s Country and now Milk Street on PBS. He is a hunter in his home state of Vermont. Yet, wild game cookery isn’t something you’ve seen on his shows.

Years ago, I had a photograph of me holding up two or three rabbits that I had shot – because I do a lot of rabbit hunting in the winter. America Public Television distributes our show [Cook’s Country], and I think they sent out a warning indicating the stations may want to gray out that particular photograph. So, most people are not prepared for that, probably.

Some people are prepared, though – and ready to become hunters.

You see more women hunting now than you did. And, I think in certain parts of the country there’s more of it.

Kimball says if you plan to cook game, you must know the optimal cooking methods for each type of meat.

The tough, dark meat you braise slowly – like the back legs of the rabbit. But, the very lean tenderloin – or backstrap – that gets cooked in about five minutes. Some of that meat you can barely cook – like the tenderloin of a deer. You don’t want to cook it much over medium rare. But, if you have other cuts of meat that are tougher and really need a long, slow cooking – you really have to think about the cuts that way, because game meat isn’t fatty. And actually, that’s why they larded it. And I’ve done it – larded venison –because it needed the fat. It’s not like a 300 pound pig that’s got a lot of fat in it.

Find recipes for game on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

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

Is this the size fish Lake Bois d’ Arc can look forward to producing?

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Lake Bois d’ Arc, a new reservoir project 70 miles northeast of Dallas, may be the future hot spot for trophy largemouth bass

One of the main things we are doing is establishing some nursery ponds that we can come into and introduce some genetically superior largemouth bass strains that have the potential for growth into that trophy status over eight pounds or so.

Dan Bennett is a natural resources specialist with Parks and Wildlife

Those are Florida strain Largemouth bass and we are hoping that this is going to be the first opportunity to come into a new reservoir with some of those ShareLunker offspring that are produced at our Freshwater Center in Athens. The ShareLunker are fish over 13 pounds and larger that have been donated to our selective breeding program.

ShareLunkers are fish with proven genetic potential to reach a trophy size.

So we are hoping that those fish we stocked in those nursery ponds come through that program. If that’s the case, we should be able to track those fish long term. Once this reservoir has existed for eight or ten years, we may be seeing some large fish caught by anglers over there that we can then genetically trace them back to a particular lineage that may have originated from that hatchery down in Athens.

The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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

Image courtesy www.fanninwater.org

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This is Passport to Texas

Lake Bois d’ Arc is a 16,000-acre reservoir under construction in northeast Fannin County, scheduled for completion in 2022.

From a fisheries biologist perspective, it’s particularly exciting to get in on the ground floor of establishing a fishery in a new lake like this; not something that many of our biologist have had the opportunity to do.

Dan Bennett is a natural resources specialist with parks and Wildlife. Anglers may look forward to a lake with variety of sportfish; Bennett’s work will make sure of it.

The north Texas municipal water district has helped us identify four ponds that will eventually be flooded by the reservoir to come in and establish some small-scale fisheries or nursery ponds to be able to introduce both forage fish and ultimately genetically superior largemouth bass; and [then] pre-stock those ponds, which we’re planning on doing this year. [This will give] those fish a little bit of an edge or a boost before the lake fills so they’ll be year or two old and more or less adult fish that are ready to spawn.

Once the reservoir opens to the public, anglers will have another productive Texas fishery to enjoy.

Our goal is to do everything in our power to establish fish populations in those lakes and try our best to make them the best they possibly can be.

The Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series.

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