Savory pheasant bread pudding, page 75

Jen and son Cyrus at the farm

Yea. This recipe is not exactly easy to picture, is it? It’s like trying to wrap your mental taste buds around “kale chocolate chip cookies” or “fried catfish blueberry pie”.

Well, let me tell you, it may be a difficult recipe to picture, but OMG-and every other camouflaged expletive that gets the point across without saying naughty words on the internet- this baby is so bleeping good.

We were so proud of the pheasant that Fred hunted and ready to put it to good use. There had been a lot of effort to get the bird: Fred found a place that raised and released pheasants, he arranged with his sister to drive their dad up to Columbia to go hunting so that his dad didn’t have to make the trip, they spend about all day in the hunt, and about the rest of the day cleaning the birds. Now we were hoping to make something good from it.

Since there are two recipes for pheasant in the book and one calls for morels, a spring mushroom, we went with what was behind door number two: savory pheasant bread pudding.  It was one of those all day cooking affairs is seems like: first finish up cleaning the bird, then cook it until you can debone it, then get the rest of the ingredients for the recipe at the store, chop, stir, bla bla bla. And, all for a recipe that was so curious to us. What in the world were we making? Savory pheasant bread pudding? What even is that?

We were taking this dinner to our friends house who make cheese (www.goatsbeardfarm.com ) so that ingredient we left out until we got there. By the way, I can not recommend their cheese enough. It is fabulous and can be purchased in Columbia at the farmer’s market, HyVee and the Root Cellar, I believe. Anyway, we prepared the bread part of the recipe, and custard/meat/veggie part, and tromped on out to their farm to assemble and bake dinner.

It was all so wonderful. Grate some goat cheese and stir into the egg, cream mixture. Help package cheese while the oven warms up. Chat. Mix the spinach, pheasant, onion and cream mixture with roasted bread chunks in pans and bake. In the mean time make a salad of candied Missouri pecans, dead ripe pear, Goatsbeard Farm blue cheese, currants and lettuce. Serve with beer. Chat at dinner about the hunt, and about what in the world we were eating and about everything else we are anxious to chat about. Watch the kids play. Be glad for the lives we have.

This one one of the best recipes out of the book thus far. And, the whole experience from hunt to dinner was an experience just like we hoped for when we started the woods to food project--an interesting hunt shared with family, a great meal shared with friends.

Man, sometimes life is rich.

Big Lick Birds



Dad with his dog Penny

On Saturday my Dad and I set off for Big Lick Birds. Although this may sound like a fried chicken stand, it is actually an upland game bird hunting preserve near Boonville.

I had given my father this hunt as a combination Christmas/birthday gift. He had turned 83 December 30. In addition to having fun, our purpose was two-fold: Dad had hunted his young dog some this quail season, but rarely got her into any birds, so he wanted to make sure she encountered some quail, just to remind her of why they were taking these long walks together. Me, I needed both quail and pheasant for recipes in Cooking Wild in Missouri, and didn’t see any other way I would get enough birds to match the grocery list.

Dave DeGraffenreid, who owns Big Lick Birds (www.biglickbirds.com) with his wife Jan, is a very likeable guy. Before we went hunting he showed us where he raised the birds, and the flight pens. It looked like a lot of work. He mentioned that he lost $5,000 last year, which was pretty good, because the year before he had lost $7,000.

Following the brief tour we got in our truck and followed Dave to a nearby field. After a two-hour ride in her dog box in the back of the truck, we were afraid that Penny, Dad’s English setter, would be ready to run, so we started her off slow. Dave put out two quail. Sure enough, when we let Penny loose, she ran up and down the field without a care in the world. She looked rather ridiculous, and I think Dad was somewhat embarrassed for her. She was acting just like a dog in the park, not a bird dog.

After watching her frolic to and fro without locating either of the two quail, we finally tried to show her where one was, and she still didn’t get it. That quail got up and we shot it, but Penny just wasn’t into the game.

Dave was sympathetic, and offered to go get Duke, and we said sure. Duke is an English setter like Penny, and has been Dave’s pride and joy. Duke is now 17 years old, although if you asked Duke, I think he would describe himself as being middle aged.  Duke did find the second quail, but Penny failed to back his point like a good bird dog should. She just wasn’t really paying attention.

By now we had spent an inordinate amount of time on killing two quail, so we had Dave go ahead and put out the other 10. Penny had calmed down, but still wasn’t awe-inspiring. We got up another quail, and shot at it, knocking off some feathers, and saw it land at the fence that separated the woods from the field. I spotted the quail walking about there, just on the other side of the fence, looking quite healthy. The woods were a mess of cedar trees at the edge, and I knew I wouldn’t have a shot if the quail flew into the woods. I didn’t want to shoot it on the ground, so we called Penny over and took our chances. She smelled it, but didn’t have a point before the bird took flight into the woods. I wrote that one off as lost, but a few minutes later, Penny came out of the woods with the quail in her mouth.

From then on she was on pretty good. She and Duke both found and pointed birds, and we got six more, missing  one that flew to the end of the field and across the road. The quail didn’t really want to fly much until they just had to, but once they got off the ground they flew as fast as a quail living in the wild.

It was then about noon, and we had found 10 of the 12 quail, so we let the other two go and moved on to the next field to hunt the pheasant. Normally at a pay-to-hunt hunting preserve, you pay a price per bird if you have your own dog, and if you need to use the house dog and guide, you have an additional fee. Dave didn’t bring this up, and gave us a lot of his, and Duke’s, time for no additional fee, and no questions asked. He also helped me clear a jam in my shotgun that I was giving me trouble. He just really wanted us to have a good hunt, and when Penny came around and started acting like the bird dog that she was meant to be, Dave was more excited and happier than any of us.

Dave set out our four pheasant in pretty heavy cover, warning us that we would need to get on them pretty quickly or they would run. He then took Duke home and left us on our own.

We looked and looked for the first two cocks he put out for probably half an hour without luck. Finally, Penny located the first cock. I missed it, but saw where it landed in the woods, and the second time we got it up it wasn’t so lucky.

After failing to find the second cock, we moved on to the part of the field that should have the hens. We had another big walk, back and forth through the heavy cover several times, and came up dry. Then Penny got a point in a spot we had walked through two or three times. Sure enough, one of the hens was there.

Dad decided to take a break from searching for the last two pheasants, and go back for the quail that had flown from our former field across the road into this one. It was worth our while, Penny found the well hidden quail. Even though she had a solid point in what looked like little cover, neither Dad nor I saw the bird until it flew. We got it as it flew on into the pheasant field.

We looked a little more, but finally gave up on the last two pheasant. Penny had gotten into a lot of birds, and had redeemed herself from her initial frivolous behavior. All three of us were tired, and we had enough quail and pheasants in the bag to take care of the Cooking Wild in Missouri recipes.

We enjoyed making the acquaintance of Dave and briefly, Jan. Jan had a tough year last year, having three strokes, but she managed to kill three deer in-between the strokes.

When we left it was after 1:30, and we needed lunch. Dad had never been to Boonville, so we headed over there. We were looking for an old downtown diner, and crisscrossed the downtown about three times without finding anywhere open. I went one more block toward the river, and saw a man standing on the corner with a sign that said “Fried Fish Special - $5.00.” He was like a messenger from God. I immediately parked, and he directed us to a little side-street restaurant called “Catch and Release” (http://boonvillescatchnrelease.com).  The food was excellent. The only disappointment was that the owner, a Kansas City guy, said he is going to close by March 31, because his current location isn’t working out, and he couldn’t find anywhere else to rent in Boonville. But he hopes to open another restaurant soon, perhaps in Columbia. I recommend going to the Catch and Release in Boonville while you still have a chance.

Birds for Hire

The pheasant recipes worried me. Early on we contacted a friend in Iowa where I had hunted successfully before, knowing this was stretching Cooking Wild in Missouri beyond its borders, but also thinking it was my best bet. No dice - he said I'd be wasting my time. He didn't have any birds on his farm this year.

Several years ago I attemped to pheasant hunt in Northwest Missouri with my Dad and one of his buddies. I remember doing what appeared to be mud-bog racing to keep from burying Dad's new truck in what I had mistakingly thought was a county road. I remember walking so much that the dogs gave up and layed down. And I remember that we never saw a pheasant. I can honestly say that I've seen more prairie chickens in the wild in Missouri than pheasants.

So I consulted my lifelong bird-hunting partner, my father. He's a farmer that has a lot of feeding to do this time of year, and wasn't too interested in going to South Dakota or Texas. I only needed two cups of pheasant meat. He suggested we go to a private pay-to-hunt place close to home where we could get pheasant and quail. I agreed and told him I would check into it, as a delay tactic, and then invited him to go as a Christmas/birthday gift to him.

This Saturday is a the day. Going to a pay-to-hunt pheasant farm is kind of like going to brothel. Sure, you look forward to the experience and will probably enjoy it while you're there, but even if you perform well you're not going to brag to your friends about it afterward. The contrtactual nature of the arrangement implies a guarantee of success that takes away from the manly pride of the hunt somewhat.

It's also probably cheaper to go to a brothel than a pay-to-hunt ranch. I price shopped several hunting farms online, and their prices don't vary a lot, and all seem quite steep. I won't say exactly how much, because Ann may read this blog. Let's just say it would be cheaper to eat pheasant at a nice restuarant, with white table-cloths, and follow it up with dessert and coffee.

Then again, these guys have raised these birds from eggs, to tiny helpless hatchlings, to young birds learning to fly, and finally to maturity. And I'm asking to come out to their farm and shoot them with a shotgun. I suppose a man deserves to be compensated for that.

My one previous experience with this taught me that success doesn't necessarily come easily, even when you pay for it. I took Dad to a pay-to-hunt quail operation a few years ago. When we found the quail that we had purchased, which had been hidden from us in Easter-egg fashion while we drank hot coccoa, they were rather hard to get out of their thorny thicket. When we did get them up, they seemed to be impervious to our birdshot. After I finally downed one, I realized why. This creature was unlike any Bobwhite quail I'd shot before. It was at least twice as big, as was able to shake off a scattering of the light shot we were throwing at it. To drop one you had to get it dead-center in your pattern, and do it pretty quickly. I needed heavier shells, but it was too late. Some of the super-quail I had just purchased escaped to the nearby woods, where I hope they are still living happy lives. My sympathy to any predator that tries to take one on.

This Saturday, we'll be hunting pheasants and quail, so I'll have an array of shotshells on hand. In addition to my two cups of pheasant, I also need quail for some recipes. Dad has hunted the farm this year and not found many, so I thought I had better leave what was there to him and my nephew Eric. So several recipes are riding on how well Dad and I shoot Saturday, even if we are paying for the birds.