Timetable for Cooking Game
(According to Size)
- Venison – Well Done – 30 to 40 minutes
- Venison – Rare – 20 to 30 minutes
- Large Game – Roasted – 20 to 40 minutes
- Large Game – Broiled – 15 to 20 minutes
- Small Game – Roasted – 20 to 30 minutes
- Small game – Broiled – 15 to 20 minutes
- Large Birds – Roasted 40 to 75 minutes
- Large Birds – Broiled – 15 to 25 minutes
- Small Birds – Roasted – 10 to 15 minutes
- Small Birds – Broiled – 10 to 15 minutes
Game should be cooked and served at once.
All dark meats are served rare — white meats, well done.
In general, all wild game should be hung some time before cooking — to improve the flavor, and to make it more tender. Birds should be drawn, but need to be plucked until just before using. Birds should Never Be Scaled before plucking. To more easily remove the down from birds, especially ducks — which are the most difficult to “de-feather” pour hot paraffin over the bird, allow it to harden, and then pull it off, the down coming with it. Other birds may be handled about the same way chickens are.
Duck, especially, should be almost raw next to the bone, or at least it should be decidedly underdone.
For the smaller birds, such as pheasants, 15-20 minutes at the utmost for roasting or broiling.
Canvasback, mallard, teal or any of the other varieties are prepared by first plucking, drawing and singeing to remove pin feathers, then the heads are removed and the birds wiped well. Next they are seasoned slightly with salt and pepper and are, when roasted, placed in a very hot oven (500 Degrees) to cook and sear at the same time. If no stuffing be used, it is advisable to place either and onion, slices of apples, a small grated carrot, a few stalks of celery, a few loganberries, cranberries or juniper berries in the cavity, removing when serving. This absorbs some of the wild flavor.
The time-honored sage dressing is excellent with wild duck, but there are many other dressings for this delicate bird. Ducks, especially wild ducks, seem to have an affinity for wild rice and orange slices, the latter placed over the cooked wild rice surrounding the cooked bird.
Game in general should be treated gently, tenderly and with nice discretion and simplicity. Our wild birds from woodland and shores need no extraneous aids of spices or condiments to give them savor and piquancy; they should be aged and ripened just about as much as are the common meats of the market, except pheasants and a few others.
All birds of the air, field and forest put on plump layers of muscle, pure lean meat and have little of the fatty tissue of farm-raised ducks and chickens and they should always go to gridiron, spit or oven well fortified with added fat.
Wild pheasant, grouse and qual should be properly larded and blanked over the breast with a thin sheet of sweet larding pork, held in place by the trussing of the fowl. Quail will roast or broil in 15 minutes, and grouse and pheasant take about 40; and the blanket of larding pork must be removed when the bird is half done, so the breast may be delicately browned. Canvasbacks or mallards love celery, so it is advisable to use it freely with these birds.
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt of THE DERRYDALE GAME COOKBOOK available in the Sporting Classics Store.
