Kindi Lantz - 19 Feb

THE

WILD GAME

SMOKER

AND GRILL

COOKBOOK

Sensational Recipes and BBQ Techniques for Mouth-Watering Deer, Elk, Turkey, Pheasant, Duck and More

Kindi Lantz

Text and photographs copyright 2019 Kindi Lantz except as noted below. Design and concept copyright 2019 Ulysses Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized duplication in whole or in part or dissemination of this edition by any means (including but not limited to photocopying, electronic devices, digital versions, and the internet) will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Published by:

Ulysses Press

P.O. Box 3440

Berkeley, CA 94703

www.ulyssespress.com

ISBN: 978-1-61243-885-6

Acquisitions editor: Casie Vogel

Managing editor: Claire Chun

Editor: Shayna Keyles

Proofreader: Renee Rutledge

Front cover and interior design: what!design @ whatweb.com

Front cover images: shutterstock.comcharcoal TMON; BBQ meat Kevin.McCollum; ribs Arina P Habich; duck and pheasant icons Sandra P; rabbit icon KittyVector; running pronghorn icon Robert Adrian Hillman; running deer icon Duda Vasilii; standing elk and boar icons SunshineVector; quail icon Dagmara Ponikiewska

Interior images: Kindi Lantz except meatballs Alexey Borodin

Distributed by Publishers Group West

IMPORTANT NOTE TO READERS: This book is independently authored and published and no sponsorship or endorsement of this book by, and no affiliation with, any trademarked brands or products mentioned or pictured within is claimed or suggested. All trademarks that appear in this book belong to their respective owners and are used here for informational purposes only. The author and publisher encourage readers to patronize the quality brands and products mentioned and pictured in this book. Take special note of the important safety warnings throughout this book, and always use customary precautions for safe food preparation, handling, and storage.

To those who strive to live wildly.

To those who work to keep wild lands free.

And to my wonderfully wild family.

Contents

Foreword

At this point in my life, Ive been away from Montana longer than Ive lived there, but it will always be my home.

On the East Coast, I get this response a lot when I tell people where Im from: Wow Ive never met anyone from Montana! There are a couple of reasons for that first of all, there arent that many of us. At last count, just over a million people live in the fourth largest state in the union (only Alaska, Texas, and California are bigger by land area). The second reason is because many of the people who grow up there choose to stay, or find their way back later in life. My cousin (and the author of this book), Kindi Lantz, is one of the latter. As much as I thrive on big-city living, I cant really blame her. Theres clean air, miles and miles of wilderness, and a sky that twinkles with billions of stars each night. (As a kid, I just assumed that everyone could see the Milky Way with the naked eye.)

Of course, there were other things about growing up in Montana that I didnt fully appreciate until I moved away. Like the fact that anytime we wanted some sort of beef for dinner (which was quite often), my mom would simply send me out to the garage to grab a package out of our deep freezer. Thats because we would buy a half (or sometimes a full) cow from our friends who raise grass-fed cattle. They would butcher and package it all, wrap it in white paper, hand-label its contents, and into our freezer it would go, ready to be made into hamburgers, tacos, stew, or just a good ol fashioned steak dinner.

Ironically, it wasnt until I moved away and developed a more curious palate that I started sampling (and loving) the other kinds of meats that Montana has to offer. My immediate family was not made up of hunters, so I didnt even taste venison for the first time until I was living in California, where you either need to know someone who hunts or be prepared to pay astronomical prices at the grocery storeand that is in the rare instances that they would carry it at all. This simultaneously coincided with my newfound obsession with food, both in terms of adventurously trying new restaurants and experimenting in my own kitchen. While I still appreciated the simplicity of what I grew up eating, I also craved the creativity of California cuisine combining ingredients and flavors I would never have dreamed of as a kid.

Thats why I love Kindis take on wild game cooking. Sure, youll find standard preparations for things like steaks and burgers. But Kindi will show you how to enhance those flavors with things like compound butters or an herb chimichurri sauce. The Appetizers chapter is where this book especially shines, giving fresh takes on game meat preparation, like Grilled Nacho Bites with Seasoned Antelope or Mozzarella-Stuffed Meatballs with Sun-Dried Tomato Dipping Sauce. In the salads and sides chapter, the Smoked Duck Fried Rice definitely caught my eye, and the Cherry-Smoked Duck with Huckleberry Cabernet Sauce from the Entres section had me salivating. For the more experienced smokers out there, there is also a whole section on making your own jerky and summer sausage. And, if for some reason you ended up with this book but do not care for game meat, most of these recipes would be easily adaptable using beef, pork, or poultry.

I urge you to get outside your comfort zone and try something new from this book! And while I will not be smoking meats anytime soon in my NYC apartment, I will definitely be incorporating some of these ideas into my next rooftop BBQ.

Jaymee Sire Food blogger, TV host, and Montana girl at heart

Jaymee Sire is a television host, food blogger, and adventurer. You may have seen her in the past anchoring Sports Center on ESPN or making various appearances on The Food Network. You can check out her latest creations and travels on eisforeat.com.

INTRODUCTION

Raised Wild

I often forget that the way I was raised is not the norm; that Montana, in its vastness, provided me far different experiences than those of people raised in other cities, other states, other countriesexperiences I often took for granted until I ventured away from my home state. As a child, Id get bundled up to withstand the crisp autumn air, climb into the back of the pickup truck alongside our loyal, doofy retrievers, and head out through the fields with my dad on pheasant hunts. Wed typically return with the days bounty before noon.

The first time I went on one of these trips with my dad, I recall that the feeling of sheer excitement was quickly replaced by disappointment when it was brought to my attention that we couldnt eat the birds right away but would first have to age the meat. When we finally did get to indulge, it was always served the same way: Southern fried pheasant with mashed potatoes and gravy. I never had pheasant any other way until adulthood, when I began to explore different cooking techniques. Dont get me wrong, it was delicious; my mothers Southern roots influenced our menus quite frequently, and my sisters and I never complained unless frozen carrots or canned mushrooms entered the scene.

Pheasant certainly wasnt the only game meat that graced our plates. Like many children of my generation, I am the product of a divorced and remarried family. Im very lucky to have two fathersboth of whom were hunters, contributed to my love of game meat, and taught me to respect the animals that nourish us as well as the earth on which they roam. If you take nothing more from this book, remember those very important lessons my fathers instilled in me.