Author: Timothy Fowler

Braising is the ideal treatment for tough shoulder cuts Get on it: Clear your freezers. If you were lucky enough to tag more than one big-game animal last season, you may well need to clear your freezer prior to this year’s hunts. Hunters having year-over-year success often find themselves with an inventory of less-desirable cuts and aging package dates. Anticipating filling most of the eight big game tags on deck for me for the fall 2023 season, I combed through my frozen inventory in search of aging chunks of venison. Some big-game archery and bear seasons are already open, and…

Here’s How Elk Bones and Sweet Spices Enhance Rich Pho Broth What can you do with all those elk bones from the butchering process? Because it pains me to toss elk, moose, deer, antelope and/or bear bones into the garbage, I make soup stock. My freezer contains an inventory of stock made from the bear, elk and moose I have hunted. Occasionally, I get to fillet a few lake trout and add fish stock to the selection. It seems like every week I am making soup or sauce. When these are made with a properly constructed stock, the results are…

A frenched venison loin is a fancy cut of bone-in meat worthy of a celebratory dinner. Think of those bone-in lamb loins at the custom butcher shop—the ones with a row of rib bones protruding from the loin, each one scraped clear to the bone. Fancy. And delicious. Frenching is a fun treatment for a bone-in loin and it looks impressive when carved at the table. Many hunters butcher their own deer. Others leave this detailed work to the butcher. Either way, you will need to provide cutting instructions to get more of what you want. Knowing what you want…

Make Your Own Pasta Topped with Delicious Ragu Winter is ragu time. Winter here in the north has rolled in with a vengeance, so it is time to share hearty heartwarming food with family. While deciding what to do with my canned venison, the idea of rich tomato ragu on fresh pappardelle captured my attention. Last year, there were more four-legged animals harvested than could fit in my freezers. This meant two things: we could eat well, and because there wasn’t enough room for all the venison cuts in the freezer, we pressure-canned some tougher cuts of venison and bear.…

Stop! Don’t toss those shanks in the grind pile––make Osso Buco instead. The way I approach game butchery is with this question: ‘How do I get the most value from this animal?’ Don’t get me wrong. I love back straps, but the slow-roasted dishes are pure luxury. Given a choice, I would choose this recipe for Osso Buco every time. We all use ground venison, but once you eat a well-prepared Osso Buco, you will want to make sure going forward that every shank is carefully cut in two- inch crosscuts and prepared this way. This has become my favorite…

Processing your whole animal from field to table can provide a rewarding outcome For me, processing a whole deer and bringing it from the field to the table is a real source of pride. Years ago, my Dad remarked about his thinking that there aren’t too many folks who can do that. He continued, “You took the training and got the license; purchased a firearm and learned to shoot it accurately; hand-loaded custom hunting cartridges; found a place to hunt and negotiated access. You learned about animal behavior; hunted, stalked, and cleanly killed a wild animal; field dressed it, butchered…

Dutch ovens are the matriarch of cast iron with their strength and versatility. Here’s everything you need to know to select the right dutch oven for your outdoor kitchen! Why A Dutch Oven? If cast iron were royalty, the Dutch Oven would be the queen of the family. A version of the cast iron Dutch Oven likely fed the early visitors to North America. Cast Iron is nearly indestructible and is the perfect platform on which to build an outdoor kitchen. From searing deer loin to simmering antelope curry, and baking sourdough to frying pancakes, the Dutch Oven does it…

My freezer is full. All three of my freezers are full. This week, a good buddy wants to gift me a dozen freshly frozen spring geese. Next week, bear season opens. What’s a guy to do? Let me explain. Start Canning! My firm recommendation is to plan ahead and buy yourself a top-end All American Canner Pressure Cooker (in Canada here) and a few dozen Mason jars in sizes that suit your lifestyle. This will cost a few hundred dollars, depending on the size of the canner. I purchased the 15-quart size and have never looked back. Here’s a pro…

The Luxurious Center-of-the-Plate Entrée Ideas for Dinners the Whole Family Can Enjoy Hunters take pride in doing things right, pride in the game on the table, and pride when dinner guests rave about the meal, especially the meat. We made five kinds of sausage this year, three using commercial sausage mix, and two using our own family recipe. There is something else. Bear season is just around the corner. Our extended family ordered a custom killed- hung-wrapped-beef split between us and my two boys’ families. Read: freezer jammed-packed. In addition to this, our five grandkids are pounding the dining room…

Hunter’s Cutlets for the Whole Family Jägerschnitzel means hunter’s cutlet, and it’s the perfect game-dinner entree. The dish can be fancied up for date night or dressed down for a simple Tuesday-night supper. This time of year, we hunters are likely to want to clear some space in the freezer for the anticipated results of bear season- opening and a summer of successful fishing trips. Serving Jägerschnitzel is a great option to help make more room in the freezer. While this German dish was originally made with venison or wild boar, nearly any lean, straight-grained game will work. Every cut…