Episode 3: How to cook wild game

Eating the wild game you harvest doesn’t have to mean tearing into a yearlong supply of jerky.

Allie Doran, the wild game chef behind Miss Allie’s Kitchen, has been perfecting wild game and venison recipes to make the most of the meat that fills her freezer after each hunting season. Allie experiments with flavors and preparations that turn even the most reluctant meateaters into fans of her wild game recipes. Her speciality is easy-to-make weeknight meals for busy families.

In this episode of The Slayer Hunting Podcast, Allie shares with host Bill Ayer her controversial tip for cooking the perfect duck, elk and venison that doesn’t taste gamey. They tackle the science behind some common wild game cooking myths. And Allie gives Bill pointers for smoking, braising and barbecuing when he hits the grill for the fifth time this week. 

Find easy, everyday wild game meals from Miss Allie’s Kitchen on Slayer’s Recipe Feed. Check out the recipes Allie has posted already, including her blackberry bourbon sauce:

- Pan-seared duck with blackberry bourbon sauce
- Duck tacos with orange and cabbage slaw
- Braised duck legs with parsnip puree

Allie is the author of Venison Every Day and founder of Miss Allie’s Kitchen. You can sign up for her free venison cooking tips and recipes on her website.

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Does your family have a tried and true method for cooking tender game meat? Have you whipped up a duck dinner using one of Allie’s recipes? What’s the worst-prepared game you’ve ever tasted? Drop a line to info@SlayerDuckCalls.com to tell us all about it. 

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Transcript

Hey, y'all welcome to the Slayer Podcast. I'm your host Bill Ayer, owner of Slayer Duck Calls. A company founded on family, heritage, unraveled quality craftsmanship and an uncontrollable obsession for hunting. Let's get to it.

So today we're here with Allie Doran, with Allie's Kitchen. Miss Allie’s Kitchen and welcome to the Slayer podcast. So Allie, hello, how are you doing?

Good. How are you Bill? Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Yeah, we're excited to have you and it's great to have you as a Slayer chef and giving us these wonderful recipes to cook up our wild game, so. I was going to do an introduction for you Allie, but maybe you can do that for us. Who is Allie Doran and Miss Allie's Kitchen and you can give us a little background.

Sure. Absolutely. Well, I've been really excited to be contributing to Slayer with some recipes. It's been really fun these last few months. But like you said, I'm Allie Doran. My brand and company is called Miss Allie's Kitchen. Miss Allie's Kitchen is a website resource and social media. And I focus on recipes, specifically wild game and outdoor and really passionate lifestyle topics, encouraging people to get outside, do what they love. And I'm also a cookbook author. I have a venison cookbook.  It's called Venison Every Day and I'm also a mom and wife. My husband is an avid outdoorsman. That's kind of the whole deal about me. We live in eastern, central Pennsylvania, so a lot of outdoor country to explore here. We live in a really small town.

Yep. Lots of whitetails, right?

Lots of whitetails, that's what I primarily work with.

Got it. Well, that's awesome. So how'd you get into the whole...Your husband's an avid hunter, how'd you get into wild game recipes and going down that avenue.

Yeah, sure. So it's a little bit by accident. I call myself an accidental hunter's wife and I find that there's a lot of other... I don't necessarily want to say spouses because people have just family members. Maybe it's a parent or sibling, but they find themselves in a position like I am. But I did not grow up in a household with anybody that was into the outdoors and hunting or even foraging or fishing really. My father is an athlete, so that was my upbringing. I grew up as an athlete, I'm a runner, I played soccer. I'm an equestrian, so equestrian sports and horses are my passion. So I've always had a really big appreciation for being outdoors, being outside. I've never been afraid of getting dirty. You really can't be if you have horses.

And I met my husband Jared, seven or eight years, I don't really remember at this point. But he is an avid outdoorsman, he is an angler as well, but primarily his focus is Whitetail deer hunting. He hunts a lot of Mountain Buck in public land. He's an archer and I just found his absolute passion for hunting really contagious and I thought it was really interesting. So he's actually encouraged me to pursue writing as an adult, but with his passion for being outdoors. He usually, knock on wood, usually harvests every year, he hunts PA on Ohio. Pretty religiously and regularly, so I was always left with all 60 pounds of fresh meat in our freezer, and especially when we lived in the apartment. It took up a lot of space and  I'm really big on not letting food go to waste. I am an animal lover, as I find a lot of outdoors men and women are.

So we are big on respecting the animals, any harvest. And, we were really on a budget in those early days, so we had all of this... I mean, quote unquote free protein in our freezer. So I had a food blog at the time. I was really focused on healthy recipes, healthy baking. And I was just really unable to find a voice in all the noise of all of the other healthy food bloggers, because there's a lot of really talented people out there. And I was posting these recipes, paleo recipes, whole paleo recipes, even recipes without meat. And I felt I was closet eating venison. I didn't want to talk about it on social media, because I was afraid people would come at me. And I started really enjoying working with venison and after a year or two, I started getting the hang of it.

And I finally got the courage to publish a couple of recipes on the blog. I didn't talk about it on social media. I put a couple pins out on Pinterest and then the stuff started going viral. So I remember being at a conference... That'll be about four years ago now and I said, "Well, I have this thing that whenever I talk about it, people go crazy, but I'm really nervous about it." And I was like, "I actually cook with wild game" and everybody was surprised and it was like, "this is your thing, this is your topic." So I got really passionate about it, talking with other people that were like myself, they didn't grow up eating wild game. They grew up getting all of their meat from and all of their food from the grocery store. They were used to browsing the aisles of whole foods for fun.

And while I still do that. Now, I would say in the summer about 80% or more of our diet comes from foods that are locally grown or killed, which is really cool. It's been really fun to really get focused on where our food comes from, how it's being handled, the ethics behind things. And now I have a cookbook with all venison recipes. I've been able to connect with a lot of people who I just feel are similar, there's definitely... I feel this kind of weird space where there's a lot of resources for hunters for preparing what they kill right away.

There's a lot of recipes written by chefs that are absolutely wonderful. I personally enjoy them, but I'm also a professional recipe developer. So I think that sometimes, a mom in Wisconsin with three kids at home, who's trying to cook dinner on Tuesday, but she's also got 50 pounds of fresh, not fresh but frozen meat in the freezer. She doesn't have time to go serve stew for berries and grind something for 24 hours and make it. She needs a 30 minute meal that can feed a family of five and do so with something that even little mouths and little taste buds find pleasing. So that's my background — a little bit lengthy and long-winded, but there we are.

No, that's awesome. I think it talks to a lot of us and there's a couple of things that you said. Me being an avid hunter, waterfowl, elk, deer and so forth and I also do a lot of fishing. And so, one of our challenges is that a lot of big game or wild game recipes have been passed down through word of mouth, right? My dad would cook it one way and then my mom would take it and she'd do some stuff to it. And there's really never been a good resource to find interesting and good recipes and actual ways of cooking this stuff, because at Slayer, what we want to do is, give us hunters a total journey, right? From helping folks find the right spot to hunt.

And once they get there, to be successful with the right tools and have the knowledge to be successful when they find that place to hunt. And then what do you do with your game once you've killed it? And then how do you enjoy it on the table once you cook it? So from field to plate, what's that total journey look like? And the one thing I don't have, and why we love partnering with you is I had some recipes passed down to me, but none of them were really great recipes. And so I think there's a lot of myths out there or actual ways to... We're always like, "Oh, duck is so gamey or venison can be so gamey."

Right.

And people have told me to soak it in milk overnight, or soak it in salty water or draw out the blood and the gaminess." And so maybe you can tell us, are those myths? Are those actual ways to pull out the gaminess? Or are there other ways to do it — ways that you’ve  found that really makes it  much more enjoyable?

Yeah. So those two methods... I have never soaked in milk. The reason why I think this could work is because milk has an acidic component. And what game meats need is a little bit of acid. Honestly, if you read, I have a book called The Flavor Bible and actually it helps me develop a lot of my recipes and it helps me... It's like a resource of what pairs well with what. So you'll have a... well, there's an entry of venison and there's just a straight up lifts to everything that pairs well with it. But in the foreword, there are recipes from world renowned chefs. And in every recipe, no matter what the protein is, especially if it's red meat, you'll see talk of, and use of a lot of vinegars and citrus. And what happens is obviously restaurant chefs and private chefs, and really anyone with a lot of culinary knowledge, they work with a lot of fat. And we'll get into this in a little bit, but you need something to cut the heavy flavor.

So whether or not that'd be heaviness from fat or cream or heavy flavor, which I think a lot of people refer to as gamey. So if you're used to store bought meat, it's just going to be a lot more mild than something like duck or venison or elk, there's more flavor to something that is harvested wild. So I think milk could work, I get a little skeeved out. And if you were to soak in milk, my opinion would be that, I'm not big on rinsing meat, but you would need to pack whatever you had soaked in milk dry, so that the milk comes completely off. Because I wouldn't want to pair handsier or something and have little weird bits of milk on it. So I've never done that, I think it would work. However, I do use milk in my meatloaf and that is really good.

Soaking in salt, that's technically a brine and I'm always for brining large cuts of meat. You're really just adding flavor. And if you're soaking something, you are drawing out some of that blood. And if that old blood is not drawn out of a meat, which is why a lot of people are big proponents of dry aging meat, when you're processing. Wow! I can't say that today, processing. Because the more blood that you can draw out of the meat, the less iron tinny flavor you're going to get. So I always recommend, even if you're not soaking in milk, even if you're not brining, even if you don't even have time to marinate, that you defrost your protein. And this applies to duck, honestly, even frozen chicken or really anything, on a paper towel. And what happens, but especially with red meat like venison and elk, moose, all the old blood is absorbed into the towel and it's no longer in your meat and that will help with creating a really clean flavor. And it'll be just much more fresh tasting.

So I think that's really important. Something I'd like to add that I think is a must. When you're cooking with steaks or chops (unless you're working with the tenderloin or the fish, which is inherently just super tender and amazing and you can cook that with just salt and pepper), I would use a marinade, but again, I would use a very acidic marinade. So my all-purpose marinate actually has red wine, vinegar or really any vinegar you want to use. Balsamic is great and lemon. So there is fresh citrus and the vinegar and that just really brightens things up, it also helps to break down the tissue, so something's a little more tender. But I find that those laborious tasks of brining and soaking in milk, they're not necessarily needed. You can get away with just like an hour marinating time, you can do overnight. But if you're short on time, you don't have to go that route.

That's very helpful because sometimes I'm like, "Is this a myth? Am I just soaking it in here just to-"

I don't think so.

Right? And so when you, take your meat out. Say elk out of the freezer, you defrost it on a towel. Are you doing that in the refrigerator? Are you doing that on a countertop at room temperature?

Yeah, in the refrigerator. However, I will say a really good tip, again, for really any protein. The sides sometimes stuck, but this is a once in a... Not once in a lifetime but this is only every once in a while. But really any protein you're cooking with, you can let it sit on the counter for about an hour before cooking and let it come to room temperature. What that does is it makes it a more even temperature to cook.

So if you're cooking an elk steak, you really want it to be rare plus, medium rare and you do not even want it to get to medium. But what will happen is, you're not left with that chud outside and raw middle. Because when you pull something out of the fridge cold, obviously the center of the protein is going to be even colder. So when you put it in a hot pan or on a hot grill, the outside is going to cook with the insides just going to warm. So especially if you're somebody that's not used to eating your protein, super rare, this would be a time where you would definitely want to let it sit to room temperature, because you're going to get that all over medium rare. And the center is going to warm more easily because it's already room temperature.

Yeah. And I wanted to talk about the cook temperature also as far as medium rare or medium.

Yeah.

For whatever reason, as far as elk or venison, I don't mind eating that rare or medium rare. In my mind, it’s is a piece of meat, right? And I heard over time that if you cook it anywhere above medium rare that it turns into leather and that's when the livery or gamey tastes really comes out. So I like my steaks medium rare. So that wasn't a problem for me. For whatever reason, eating a duck at medium rare was always kind of... I don't know why I'm like, "I don't know if I want to eat a duck at medium rare." And I don't know why I have that feeling, but when I started eating duck at medium rare to rare the taste was a million times better.

So I think it's because... I'm sorry continue.

No, I was going to say, are there any thoughts on that or why you think that that's the case?

So my thoughts are a little tough love with that. And I would do what you did, I would just get used to eating your duck at rare or medium rare. Unfortunately, just because I think... It can be ruined if it's overcooked and I think that's why people say, "oh, I don't really like that duck, it's got that weird, heavier. It's like really..." I've heard some people say grassy, which I'm not sure that I totally agree with that and then it can get really tough really quickly, so. Well with duck breasts... If you're doing duck leg, you can braise out low and slow and that will fall apart tender and it will cooked all the way through. But if you're doing duck breast, you really want that rare to medium rare.

And my opinion on that is that, it's the way it needs to be cooked. And some people don't... Like, my mom is still not somebody that loves eating meat under medium and she slowly wants to... When she comes to my house, when I cook wild game for her, I will not. If I'm cooking her a beef steak, I'll cook it to medium for her, if I'm doing any sort of game... The other night, they came over and we were actually working on recipes for you guys. And she had her duck breasts at a true, perfect, rare plus medium rare and she loved it. So I would encourage people to just get used to it. So what I'm doing... I usually like to pull my red meats, my elk or venison, if I'm working with it at around... I know it's controversial, but 115 to 120.

And then you have to let it rest for at least 10, if you can 15 minutes. I usually pull my duck at 120, but no more. Because it's going to raise  three to five degrees in temperature after you pull it. So you don't want it to pull... You don't want to wait until 130 and then it's going to get to 135, which is about medium and it's not going to be good. So that's my opinion, it's a little bit tough love. Just start getting used to it, but I think you're going to be so surprised if you really can just get used to that look. And I think the reason people are turned off by it is because, it's technically... Well it’s waterfowl, but it looks more like chicken and obviously chicken is not food safe to eat like that. So I think that's why we're like, "oh my gosh, I shouldn't be doing this," but it's fine.

Yeah. I bit the bullet, I just pan seared some duck breasts and put it over some wild rice with the sweet sauce. And I did it at, rare to medium rare. And then I was like, "this is the best duck I've ever had in my life."

Right, and it's so easy and it's fast. That's what great about it, so fast.

Yeah. So with that, what would you suggest cooking your waterfowl with because... Not so much with venison, most hunters they love that, some milk and all that. I don't hear too much people like, "oh it's too gamey" but with waterfowl, I hear a lot of people, "I just make jerky sticks with my waterfowl. I just don't like eating it in any other way." But again I think, A, they're overcooking it. B, they're not preparing it correctly and then C, I think if you pair it with a good sauce and some sides, it really makes a huge difference and you could really enjoy the meal, inside, suggestions there?

So suggestions there, I would kind of continue with what we were talking about earlier about bright, acidic flavors, but duck especially pairs really well. Well, one of the classic recipes is, duck à l'orange, my French is terrible, but orange duck basically. So anything that is like lemon, orange citrusy, I haven't had that duck taco recipe on your website, which has segmented oranges in it and some lime juice. So, if you think like bright and airy flavors, that is great. But the pan searer are great, I don't even think you need to go so far as to make a whole separate sauce, if you're whipping up something quickly. I know when I break down the duck, I do save all of the fat. I render it down quickly while I'm breaking all the cuts down into what I want them to be.

And so I do have duck fat usually on hand now, which is awesome. Really, all you need to do at the end is once you're almost finished cooking or even if you're slicing it. Put a little bit of duck fat on top and salt and pepper, and that's like so juicy and delicious. But I do think it also pairs well with blackberries. Berries are really great, we do that Blackberry sauce. It's a Blackberry bourbon sauce, so. But honestly, I served duck breasts to my daughter a lot, she's one, she loves it. She obviously can't have the bourbon sauce. So I usually serve it to her with oranges, maybe some bread and some rice is really good. I've done mashed potatoes, I've done the one recipe like a Parsnip puree. So that works really well for that.

But I would just say, to wake things up, you don't have to get crazy with a super complicated sauce. You could just know a little bit of duck fat that you've used from the pan or from the fridge and a squeeze of lemon or orange and you're really good to go. But I honestly think though that, if people like chicken, if they can just get used to cooking duck well, I would use it in place of... Not in place of chicken and chicken recipes because you can't cook it the same. But instead of cooking a chicken breast, try a duck breast with what you would normally serve your sides rest. So if you do green beans and mashed potatoes and chicken breasts, do a duck breasts instead but just make sure you're cooking it to medium rare.

Yep. Cool. That's awesome. And maybe you could tell us how to make a Blackberry bourbon sauce.

Yeah. So this is super easy. What I generally do when I'm making pan seared sauces is that I start with a little bit of... I usually like garlic or shallot and a little bit of olive oil. I get them sauteed and then I deep lays the pan with some acid and then here I'm using bourbon. If you wanted to use red wine that would be great too. If you don't like using alcohol, a little bit of stock, so duck stock would be good, vegetable stock. Just need a little bit of liquid and then you want to add your berries. So in the blackberry sauce, I do blackberries. I have a recipe and my cookbook that goes really well with venison, it's a Blueberry Balsamic. So it's similar to the Blackberry, but it's using Balsamic and blueberries. This is using bourbon and blackberries, but you just simmer down on the stove.

You don't have to do much besides mix it up and mash up the berries. After about 10 or 15 minutes, it gets thick enough that it could just be poured over whatever protein. And it's really easy, it keeps in the fridge for maybe five days. But you're having a dinner party or people over, you could make that ahead of time. I would not make your protein ahead of time, I would definitely serve duck and seared venison steaks fresh. But it's easy to do and I think it makes it a little bit more fun.

That sounds awesome. I want to go grab some duck breasts out of my fridge and eat it.

Yeah, you should.

I don't know why the blackberry bourbon reduction sauce to me just sounds amazing, over some wild rice and 

Yeah. That's how you can do it, that's all you need. I think that is where the disconnect is with the game eating after harvest. I felt like in the beginning I kept in, I was doing it wrong because it wasn't complicated.

Yeah.

And I think that's what, if I could tell something to anybody who didn't know what to do with the meat in their freezer, cook how you like and just learn how to work with the proteins appropriately. It doesn't have to be... You don't have to be a restaurant chef, you don't have to be somebody that spends so many hours and hours in the outdoors traveling the globe on big hunts to be somebody that can make a good meal of wild game. It's your taste, it's your preferences, nothing's wrong if you like it.

Yeah. So that brings up another point. You say cook the way you like, right? And a lot of us are barbecuers, I'd probably barbecue, I don't know, five days a week, even in the winter time, I'm out there-

Oh, that's awesome-

All of our meat. One way or another I'm just constantly out there. I think a lot of hunters liked to barbecue. They’re having a beer with their buddies, barbecue and eat their wild game that they harvested that day or that week or whatever. So any tips or suggestions on barbecuing?

So yes, but it's really funny. We all have our different styles. My husband and my father-in-law are barbecuers. My strength is in weeknight meals. I'm a very classically French acclimate I guess, prone cook. Where I don't like a lot of gadgets, I like... Out of necessity, I have an instant pot and an air fryer, I don't use them. I could get by with a really good cast iron skillet, a really sharp knife and a cutting board and a stove. I would be a happy girl and a good oven. But that being said, we have a Traeger and we had a gas grill, we don't really use it anymore. So I am a big advocate actually for pellet grills when it comes to game, because you can control the temperature, so that's really nice. I don't know.

I feel like a lot of people have trigger or pellet sized grills these days. I have a couple of recipes on my site, a really popular one is for smoked tenderloin. What I like about those types of grills is you can still crank them up to really high heat. So well I actually do a sear and then I drop the heat down low and I smoke for just a little bit. So I sear until it's just literally warmed and seared on the outside. It's nowhere near cooked in the middle. And this is best done with maybe a marinated backstrap on the sleeve, something that's a little bit thicker or a really thick tenderloin. So maybe there's something from an elk or a larger deer, maybe not a smaller dove or something like that. So now it's going to stand up a little bit and then I like to let the smoke kiss it.

That's really nice. And I do a traditional marinade there. So I actually prefer my ribs... I have not had great luck with venison ribs. I prefer to do short ribs braised, but you could totally braise. So braising is just cooking low and slow in a little bit of liquid. So you can totally braise in a smoker and what you'll get is a really great smoky flavor, but a lot of tenderness and geo. So what I would do there is, get a foil pan, put maybe a tougher coat like ribs or something. Give them a sear on a hot grill, turn the temperature way down somewhere around the 300's, that's usually good.

If you want to 85 and put a little liquid in your foil pan and just let it go for three, four hours, you'll probably have a really tender fall apart piece of meat. And you could do barbecue sauce, you could do a traditional braise which is usually with some red wine liquid and some tomato paste, which is what I'm partial to. I do really love French style, traditional classic French preparation, but those would be my tips there. So use it really low and slow, you can totally braise even in a foil pan. You're a big barbecuer, you can use your favorite barbecue sauce. Maybe some other liquid like beer would be good, beer and barbecue sauce to braise in. That would be really good.

Got it. I think the moral of the story... The things I'm hearing consistently throughout this conversation is, make sure you don't over cook your meat, keep it to medium rare, use acidic sauces, marinades, whatever you do, keep it acidic. And don't get too complicated. You don't have to get too fancy to really enjoy it. What's your-

No. And everything doesn't have to be super heavy. I mean, I love chili, we all love a good slice of meatloaf, roast, but there's also a lot you can do with it. My book, I've got an Asian chop solid and we've got some lighter, brighter soups, it doesn't have to be just the traditionals. So, you can make it work for you and what your family likes to eat.

Got it. Well we're super happy to have you. As a part of the Slayer family, we always like to see your monthly recipes come out. The tacos, I can't wait to try those, that's going to be my first one and then we'll move on from there. But it's been great having you and thank you so much for posting your recipes and focusing on waterfowl. It's been great.

Oh yeah. Well, thanks for having me, I appreciate it. It's been a really fun few months.

Is your book published already? Is it out for purchase?

Yeah. So we're out. We published last September and I am telling people go ahead and order now, last year we sold out. We published in September, sold out all copies, but the first thing in December, I am hoping that it does not happen again, my publisher has been warned. But it's called Venison Every Day and it's available on Amazon, wherever books are sold and we are in Cabela's and Bass Pro now.

Oh, that’s great.

Yeah. That was really fun, but we're doing a little mini relaunch, so anybody wants to buy the book now I'm doing a bunch of fun giveaways. I think we're doing a giveaway together next week. Got a bunch of fun giveaways this month. I have some nice things planned for people who already have the book, especially those that have left reviews. And on the book concepts, I do actually hold some virtual cooking classes. I have one coming up next week. So October 6th, I'm not sure when this episode will be out and then some others later in the month and then November. So that's kind of what we've got going on in Miss Allie's Kitchen this fall, but the book Venison Every Day is out.

Venison Every Day, cool. Just so you know, I'm a terrible instruction follower. I'm the guy who opens up a kid's toy and throw the instructions to the side, two hours but you know what, I have my mom's recipe book and she was an awesome cook and chef-

Oh, that's awesome.

But what I do is I usually glance over it. It gives me some inspiration and direction. And then, it gets me 70% of the way there, then that's for my own little flare into it. So I'll definitely be picking your book up so that I have different ideas and avenues to go down to cook this stuff.

Well. Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, that's what it's there for.

Yeah. Thanks, Allie. We really appreciate it-

Sure.

And have a wonderful day and thanks for being part of the Slayer Family.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Yeah we'll see you.

Bye-bye-