Speaker 1: As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days
Speaker 1: in the field. This show is about translating my hard
Speaker 1: won experiences into tips and tactics they'll get you closer
Speaker 1: to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren.
Speaker 1: This is cutting the distance. Welcome back to the podcast everyone.
Speaker 1: This week is going to be my annual Christmas Special.
Speaker 1: As a Holidays near it's a great time to share
Speaker 1: hunting stories, to prepare meals of wild game, and enjoy
Speaker 1: the harvest after the hunt. We put so much emphasis
Speaker 1: on success of the hunt, but there's also a lot
Speaker 1: of success to be had in the kitchen as well.
Speaker 1: This week, I'm gonna be breaking down a few of
Speaker 1: my all time favorite preps that you should try this
Speaker 1: holiday season. And also stay tuned because if you've listened
Speaker 1: to the Christmas Special before, you know that I like
Speaker 1: to do a few special giveaways. But before I do that,
Speaker 1: I figured i'd tell the story of this week's traditional
Speaker 1: muzzleloader hunt in true Christmas fashion. I spent the week
Speaker 1: chasing elk and white tailed deer in the mountains, but
Speaker 1: as my time for the hunt wind down, I found
Speaker 1: myself on the last evening of the last day looking
Speaker 1: to fill a tag. This was my first time hunting
Speaker 1: with a traditional muzzleloader, and honestly I would have taken
Speaker 1: anything at this point. So come and join me on
Speaker 1: a true hunt story I wrote in Christmas Verse twas
Speaker 1: the week before Christmas, when hunting alone, visibility was bad
Speaker 1: and almost time to go home. The traditional muzzleloader was
Speaker 1: loaded with care, in hopes that an elk would soon
Speaker 1: be there. I spotted some cows, all snug in their beds,
Speaker 1: but no legal bulls with racks on their heads. It
Speaker 1: was the last two hours hoping to load a cap.
Speaker 1: I had just settled my brain on some white tailed
Speaker 1: extrap when out of the woods there rose such a clatter.
Speaker 1: I focused my bin notes to see what was the matter.
Speaker 1: Away to the ground, I ducked like a flash, pulled
Speaker 1: back the hammer, and got ready to blast. A small
Speaker 1: buck emerged in the new fallen snow. I gave a
Speaker 1: firm grip to the musket below when what to my
Speaker 1: wondering eyes did appear but a bigger buck, a ten
Speaker 1: point dear. He moved toward the other buck so lively
Speaker 1: and quick. Then behind the bushes I heard their antlers
Speaker 1: click more rapid than a beagle. I cut the distance
Speaker 1: all the same and set up my camera and calmed
Speaker 1: my brain. Now record now focus. Now, grabbed the gun
Speaker 1: and focus in on the bigger one. Skip ranging onto aiming,
Speaker 1: Calm my breath and rest the site behind the chest.
Speaker 1: Focused on the iron sight shooting a patched ball. Now
Speaker 1: one buck moved away, moved away, no hear go all.
Speaker 1: As the bigger buck looked to turn, I let the
Speaker 1: bullet fly, aiming on the buck perfectly on the side.
Speaker 1: Black powder, smoke billowed, and the round ball flew. It
Speaker 1: shot through the air and found its mark too. And
Speaker 1: then after waiting, I walked over for proof. The buck
Speaker 1: ran off, but I found the tracks from his hoof.
Speaker 1: As I drew closer and was looking around, I saw
Speaker 1: hair and blood on the ground, and then in the
Speaker 1: thicks I spotted a hoof less than twenty yards from
Speaker 1: the shot. There he lay tucked under a bush, A
Speaker 1: younger buck, but he sported a good rack. It was
Speaker 1: now time to drag this buck back. The truck was close.
Speaker 1: It was a pretty easy carry. Honestly, the packout was cherry.
Speaker 1: This traditional muzzleloader is a lot like a bow. I
Speaker 1: had to get close, crawl real low. I cooked tenderloin
Speaker 1: that night. It was not tough on the teeth. Into
Speaker 1: the cast iron on a really high heat with just
Speaker 1: some butter and seasoning. It was good to the belly.
Speaker 1: The flavor of the success way better than anything prepared
Speaker 1: by Mario Batali. Near the skinning pole, I grabbed my
Speaker 1: gerber knife from a shelf and thought, I'll butcher him myself.
Speaker 1: A quick skinning job. Down to the head. I quartered
Speaker 1: him up with nothing to dread. I spoke not a word,
Speaker 1: but went straight to work and removed the final quarter
Speaker 1: with a jerk. I will use this whole deer, from
Speaker 1: his tail to his nose. I put the meat in
Speaker 1: a YETI so it would not be froze. It's really cold. Up.
Speaker 1: I loaded the truck a Christmas song. I did whistle
Speaker 1: this buck will be Christmas dinner with garlic, rosemary and
Speaker 1: an olive oil drizzle. I had a great time hunting
Speaker 1: with the old iron sight. So Merry Christmas to all
Speaker 1: into all a good night. Now that is a Christmas
Speaker 1: hunt story. I had a lot of fun this last
Speaker 1: week hunting with the muzzleloader. UM's first time actually hunting
Speaker 1: with a traditional muzzle looader and I learned a lot. Actually,
Speaker 1: my wife got the gun for me, uh, two christmases
Speaker 1: a go. It was something that I talked about wanting
Speaker 1: to get into and never just actually doing it. And
Speaker 1: I was pretty lucky because my father in law actually
Speaker 1: is big into you know, traditional muzzle or black powder hunting,
Speaker 1: and so he kind of showed me the ropes a
Speaker 1: lot on the process of cleaning and and that was
Speaker 1: kind of my main barrier to entry to that type
Speaker 1: of hunt is just like not knowing really how to
Speaker 1: use the gun, take care of the gun, being proficient
Speaker 1: with it. And so I actually had a fifty four
Speaker 1: caliber Peter Sali Uh. I guess it's a hawking style
Speaker 1: mountain gun, and they call it a mountain gun. I
Speaker 1: think it was not not super easy to carry in
Speaker 1: the mountains. It's pretty heavy. I think it's got like
Speaker 1: a thirty five inch barrel something like that. But you know,
Speaker 1: frontiersman would use it because encounter a lot larger animals
Speaker 1: out west at the time, grizzly bears, elk, bison, other things,
Speaker 1: So definitely a little bit bigger than the order smaller
Speaker 1: fifty cow hawkins. But I decided to go with that
Speaker 1: because I was gonna be hunting either elk or deer.
Speaker 1: One thing with late season hunts, I think something that
Speaker 1: I kind of forget about is, you know, late season
Speaker 1: hunting can be incredible. You know you've got if you
Speaker 1: get the right weather, you can have animals move into
Speaker 1: an area. They can they can be out in the
Speaker 1: open um. The downside is you might run into that
Speaker 1: same weather while you're hunting and have no visibility. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: for me, where I was at hunting up pretty high,
Speaker 1: I did not have any viz to where I wanted
Speaker 1: to go, to where I wanted to be. I was
Speaker 1: fogged in, socked in, snowing blowing really hard. Uh, if
Speaker 1: it wasn't snowing, snow from the ground was blowing in
Speaker 1: your face. It was just made glassing impossible. So it
Speaker 1: made the hunting a little tough. I did get in
Speaker 1: on a few groups of elk with some smaller bulls.
Speaker 1: I kind of saved my tag to hunt this particular
Speaker 1: season looking for a better bull, and over the course
Speaker 1: at archery and rifle season past st up some nice
Speaker 1: six points some other bulls. Just saying I wanted the
Speaker 1: experience to hunt the traditional muzzleloader this year. And one
Speaker 1: thing I'd like to think of myself is I'd like
Speaker 1: to think of myself as a hunter. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what the season is, I like to try it all.
Speaker 1: I like to if there was a hunting with spoons season,
Speaker 1: I'd probably be into it and give it a shot.
Speaker 1: And this was kind of one I've muzzleloaded hunted. I've
Speaker 1: bow hunted of traditional bow hunted, but I had never
Speaker 1: really jumped into hunting with a traditional muzzleloader. And there
Speaker 1: actually is a big difference when hunting with one. I found. Um,
Speaker 1: but this this particular hunt was really fun. I did
Speaker 1: get in on a few elk, some small bulls down
Speaker 1: a little bit lower, not really what I was looking for,
Speaker 1: but I definitely also had in my mind, man, I
Speaker 1: want to be successful with this gun because I haven't
Speaker 1: hunted with it, and it was kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of gone during the holiday season. Um, if
Speaker 1: I'm away from home my wife and baby, I should
Speaker 1: probably bring some meat home for Christmas. Not that I didn't.
Speaker 1: It wasn't successful this season and had eat, but it
Speaker 1: was it would be nice to have something fresh to
Speaker 1: cook up for Christmas and New year's so I really
Speaker 1: wanted to bring something home as well and be successful
Speaker 1: with it. Uh. So that that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It's always fun to try something new, and it's fun
Speaker 1: because it was a Christmas gift from my wife, something
Speaker 1: that meant a lot. So it's a beautiful rifle, uh,
Speaker 1: something about classic firearms, something about you know, just having
Speaker 1: a wood stock and a metal butt plate and just
Speaker 1: a lot of metal. And yeah it's heavy and it's
Speaker 1: cumbersome and it's difficult to carry, but the thing looks
Speaker 1: like a work art. That's fore daring, sure, and uh
Speaker 1: carrying it around you know, Actually it was kind of fun.
Speaker 1: It's something that made me think of my family, made
Speaker 1: me think about the people that I love and and
Speaker 1: trying something new and and having that and remembering that
Speaker 1: gift as well. It was kind of a cool, cool
Speaker 1: thing to do right before Christmas. So I enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: And essentially the hunt went just as that poem planned out.
Speaker 1: I was end of the end of the season, last hour,
Speaker 1: the last day, I thought to myself, I was actually
Speaker 1: kind of ended my on one day. I was supposed
Speaker 1: to be back um the day prior, but ended up
Speaker 1: pushing it like all right. Then it was the evening
Speaker 1: and I had to leave that night long drive home,
Speaker 1: so I'm like, I'm just gonna go out and look
Speaker 1: for I was like thinking to myself, well, the visibilities battery. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm probably not gonna find an elk, and if I do,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be packing it all night and then I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be late getting home. So I decided to go
Speaker 1: look for a white tail, and sure enough, I was thinking,
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I probably would have shot a
Speaker 1: dough if I could have. But a small buck was
Speaker 1: the one that I saw, and I'm like, okay, I'll
Speaker 1: hunt that buck. And then a bigger buck came out,
Speaker 1: and then two started fighting, sparring each other, clicking, clacking
Speaker 1: the horns together, and used that opportunity to sneak in.
Speaker 1: I was actually self filming and I was able to
Speaker 1: get the camera set up and they were behind the
Speaker 1: brush so I couldn't really get a shot. I used
Speaker 1: that opportunity when they're fighting to kind of move in unnoticed.
Speaker 1: And it was pretty like the snow was not super loud,
Speaker 1: but also not super quiet. It's it was really cold,
Speaker 1: so it kept some of that fluff but just think
Speaker 1: the stuff underneath made the noise, and I was moved
Speaker 1: over in the little buck was fighting the bigger buck.
Speaker 1: Bigger buck was behind some brush. I got the camera
Speaker 1: set up. The smaller buck kind of saw me, but
Speaker 1: not really super crazy curious. It was probably fifty yards
Speaker 1: or less, I don't know. I didn't range it, just
Speaker 1: look close. And he started to move off, and then
Speaker 1: just as that other buck started to follow him, just
Speaker 1: before I was able to get a shot off and
Speaker 1: make a good shot, went over there and and had
Speaker 1: a last day, last evening Christmas. Buck is pretty awesome
Speaker 1: and one that I'll definitely remember for a very long
Speaker 1: time for me after the season or bringing wild game
Speaker 1: home and the Holidays go hand in hand because it's
Speaker 1: the time of year when I can prepare that wild
Speaker 1: game for friends and family, and you know, it's also
Speaker 1: the time of year of gathering, getting together, sharing hunting
Speaker 1: stories and and share being a good meal. I think
Speaker 1: that over the course of the podcast during the Christmas season,
Speaker 1: I've always tried to throw out a few recipe ideas,
Speaker 1: and one thing that I do enjoy is I enjoy
Speaker 1: bringing the meat home and then preparing it in a
Speaker 1: way that is enjoyable for people that both hunt and
Speaker 1: don't hunt. I really enjoy making a great meal out
Speaker 1: of something that I've harvested. So this week I want
Speaker 1: to kind of break down a few of my favorite
Speaker 1: wild game preps. And I know that talking about cooking
Speaker 1: and like listening to it and then trying to figure
Speaker 1: it out might make it seem difficult, but I think
Speaker 1: that I'm just gonna kind of glaze over the recipes,
Speaker 1: the reasons that I cook things a certain way, give
Speaker 1: you a few of my favorite holiday traditions or some
Speaker 1: things that maybe you didn't think about. Um, we're gonna
Speaker 1: break it down into doing a couple of different appetizers
Speaker 1: and then a couple of different entrees, something that you
Speaker 1: can make with pretty much anything, and I'll kind of
Speaker 1: throw in some ways on how to change it for
Speaker 1: something that you have now to make it a little
Speaker 1: bit easier as well. Today I'm going to be posting
Speaker 1: all these recipes video form on my YouTube page, so
Speaker 1: those are there. But I think that the talking about
Speaker 1: it it would be a good way to kind of
Speaker 1: get you started, get your mind wrapped around it. So
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you've got some of these items in
Speaker 1: the fridge or freezer. You can go out and get
Speaker 1: a few more little things and make an incredible meal
Speaker 1: to share during the holiday season. So let's jump in.
Speaker 1: One of my first things that I like to do.
Speaker 1: One thing that I think it's overlooked with wild game
Speaker 1: is making some incredible appetizers. One of my favorites to
Speaker 1: do this time of year, which can be done very simple,
Speaker 1: or in this way a little bit more complicated, is
Speaker 1: duck nuggets. Now, if you are a small game hunter,
Speaker 1: or or maybe you've gone out and you shot some
Speaker 1: geese or whatever, this is a really good recipe for that.
Speaker 1: Now it's also a really good recipe to do with
Speaker 1: any venison as well. You can pretty much make this
Speaker 1: with anything, and I'd like to dub this the world's
Speaker 1: best deck nuggets. Now, you can make a nugget many
Speaker 1: different ways. The first could just be kind of chunking
Speaker 1: up pieces, breading it in deep frying it, and that
Speaker 1: turns out pretty awesome. The way that I like to
Speaker 1: do it imparts a little bit more flavor and it's
Speaker 1: just a little bit Yeah, it's a little bit more
Speaker 1: labor intensive, but it turns out just a little bit better.
Speaker 1: Think about Okay, this is a really bad example, but
Speaker 1: the way that I like to make these nuggets is
Speaker 1: with ground meat, so very similar to like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: the worst kind of nuggets you can get the right
Speaker 1: like McDonald's nuggets or Dino nuggets from the freezer. This
Speaker 1: is not that, Okay, So when you're thinking you can
Speaker 1: ground meat and nuggets, yeah, this is not that. This
Speaker 1: is imparting a little bit more flavor because you can
Speaker 1: mix in some herbs and some other things and you
Speaker 1: can make them kind of uniform shape, cook really well,
Speaker 1: and they're incredible to eat. So I know that's a
Speaker 1: bold claim, but it's the perfect blend of flavor, crunch,
Speaker 1: and texture, and they're super savory. This way, it's a
Speaker 1: definite crowd pleaser. So you're gonna get gather yourself up.
Speaker 1: I don't know, probably about six ducks, maybe twelve duck breasts.
Speaker 1: You could do this with um, a pound or two
Speaker 1: of ground venison, whatever you got. Then I use about
Speaker 1: a teaspoon of fresh time chopped up about a teaspoon
Speaker 1: and fresh stage chopped up a teaspoon and garlic, salt,
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna need some flour. So maybe like
Speaker 1: I mean, this portion doesn't necessarily need to be exact,
Speaker 1: but maybe like a cup and a half of flour,
Speaker 1: a cup and a half of bread crumbs, two eggs
Speaker 1: that you're gonna beat up, just you know, take them
Speaker 1: out back and beat them. Uh, and then a table
Speaker 1: spoon of or sorry, a tea spoon and garlic salt.
Speaker 1: And then you're gonna need some vegetable oil for like,
Speaker 1: if you've got a deep fryer, that's the best way
Speaker 1: to do it, like a little tabletop deep frire. That's
Speaker 1: the way we do it. We run it outside though,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't just smell up the house and spray
Speaker 1: oil everywhere or even like sometimes we use like a
Speaker 1: turkey deep fryer, anything that you can fry oil, and
Speaker 1: I like to fry stuff outside. My little secret secret
Speaker 1: to keeping the holiday house clean. Um. And then so
Speaker 1: the first step is gonna be you're gonna grind now
Speaker 1: if you haven't, if you've got a grinder, you're gonna
Speaker 1: grind up the duck breast. So you're essentially on a
Speaker 1: fine grind setting making what would be your your nugget base.
Speaker 1: So you're taking the breast and then grinding it up.
Speaker 1: If you've already got ground venison, this isn't you just
Speaker 1: pull it out of the freezer as is, grind it up.
Speaker 1: I don't add any fat with the nuggets, um, but
Speaker 1: I'm using the eggs uh to kind of if you
Speaker 1: want to, you can add eggs in with the meat
Speaker 1: to kind of hold it together a little bit better.
Speaker 1: For the most part, though, I don't necessarily need to
Speaker 1: add anything as a binder. So now you're gonna just
Speaker 1: season that duck up or that grind up using like
Speaker 1: that fresh chopped time, that sage, a little bit of garlic, salt.
Speaker 1: You're just gonna mix it all in. And then what
Speaker 1: I do is I line a cookie sheet with like
Speaker 1: parchment paper, and I press the ground meat into like
Speaker 1: a thin even layers. So I've got cookie sheet, I've
Speaker 1: got the parchment paper maybe aper on top, and then
Speaker 1: just push it let it like make one nice tray
Speaker 1: of meat, and then I'll just cover it and let
Speaker 1: it sit in the fridge for about an hour to
Speaker 1: five hours. What that's doing is just kind of letting
Speaker 1: it set kind of mixed together and kind of form
Speaker 1: stay together. Then I'll pull that back out and I'll
Speaker 1: just form bite size, like nugget patties. Then I'll dip
Speaker 1: that in the flour first. Then I have some egg
Speaker 1: beaten in a bowl. Then I dredge it in the
Speaker 1: egg after the flour, and then I finally coat in
Speaker 1: bread crumbs. Then I'm gonna heat that oil up to
Speaker 1: three degrees and just fry the nuggets until they're golden brown.
Speaker 1: Once they're done, I'll put them on a paper towel
Speaker 1: line plate or something like that and let him drain,
Speaker 1: and then just serve hot, good dipping sauce. Twelve breasts.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a pretty good batch size, but you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily need to adjust the proportions for smaller batches
Speaker 1: because a lot of it, you know, you're just mixing
Speaker 1: in um. You know, you can maybe cut some of
Speaker 1: the herbs in half, but you can't really overseason in
Speaker 1: my opinion. So that's that's one really good appetizer to
Speaker 1: throw down with. Now, the next appetizer is going to
Speaker 1: be one that Okay, maybe maybe, like I wish I
Speaker 1: would have heard this earlier so I could have could
Speaker 1: have saved some ribs. But if you happen to save
Speaker 1: any wild game ribs, I think Korean short ribs are
Speaker 1: an incredible, incredible way to prepare wild game ribs. I
Speaker 1: think the ribs get often discarded and not really thought
Speaker 1: about Christmas time. I save up ribs throughout the season
Speaker 1: if I got a white tailor whatever. When I back
Speaker 1: when we used to gather a lot and I would
Speaker 1: do my what I like to call my famous Christmas party,
Speaker 1: cooking up all different kinds of things. Ribs was just
Speaker 1: like a home run. You know, most of the time
Speaker 1: you think of ribs is not very good on wild game,
Speaker 1: but prepared right, they can be incredible. And Korean short
Speaker 1: ribs are one of my favorites. Now this recipe um
Speaker 1: a good friend of mine, Bridget is Korean, and her
Speaker 1: mom like had the traditional Korean short rib recipe that
Speaker 1: is like their cream short ribs were always the best,
Speaker 1: and they should be because they're from Korea. And so
Speaker 1: I think that I kind of got like the recipe.
Speaker 1: And one thing that I found out there's a lot
Speaker 1: of sugar and good Korean short ribs, and that was
Speaker 1: that I would always try to mimic it myself in
Speaker 1: some way, shape or form, and then I figured it out.
Speaker 1: You just got to use the sugar. It really, it
Speaker 1: really makes it good. So what I do first, Like
Speaker 1: if I've got elk, generally, especially if I um got
Speaker 1: in a place where I could pull all the ribs
Speaker 1: off bone in ribs. Uh maybe you maybe you did
Speaker 1: like a ribberal on your elk. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you do that. When I A lot of times if
Speaker 1: I don't want carry the ribs out, I actually just um,
Speaker 1: you know, take all the meat off in one and
Speaker 1: I make the same exact thing, just boneless short ribs. Um.
Speaker 1: And so what you're gonna need. You're gonna need some
Speaker 1: soy sauce about half a cup, and then a quarter
Speaker 1: cup of soda and that's like either mountain dew or
Speaker 1: seven up or some kind of clear citrus soda. And
Speaker 1: then you're gonna go a quarter cup of sugar. So
Speaker 1: there's like I don't know how much sugar is in
Speaker 1: a quarter cup of soda, but um, then you're adding
Speaker 1: a quarter cup of sugar and then about tablespoon of
Speaker 1: sesame oil and three tablespoons of graded Asian pair. You
Speaker 1: can use any kind of pair if it's like I know,
Speaker 1: I get those like people send as a gift where
Speaker 1: they like Harry and David Pears or something like wrapped
Speaker 1: up in foil. I've used those for this around this
Speaker 1: time of year. They're great. Um. And then two table
Speaker 1: spoons of mint scarlet and about a teaspoon of grated ginger.
Speaker 1: So what this is the ribs? Like think about a
Speaker 1: whole rib cage and you're just cutting along, so there's
Speaker 1: multiple rib bones in each short rib, I would say,
Speaker 1: so I just like use a band saw or saw
Speaker 1: or saws all or whatever. I generally just use like
Speaker 1: a saws all with a pretty much like a metal
Speaker 1: cutting blade and just ripped through them. So you mix
Speaker 1: all that stuff together that makes your marinade. You just
Speaker 1: soak it. You can soak it up to all day,
Speaker 1: or do it in the morning, soak it all day,
Speaker 1: cook him at night. Just let it soak in that
Speaker 1: and then you just throw it on the grill about
Speaker 1: three minute to preside and they come out incredible. Just
Speaker 1: something to think about, something a little different. Maybe, I
Speaker 1: know there's you know a lot of people probably have
Speaker 1: not had Korean short ribs with elk or venison, and
Speaker 1: they turn out great. Now, this one could be either
Speaker 1: an appetizer or an entree and it's a little bit different.
Speaker 1: I kind of got this recipe, and maybe I've talked
Speaker 1: about this one before, but I got this recipe. My
Speaker 1: dad and I were stranded in Kodiak when you're temporarily
Speaker 1: due to some weather, a lot of harsh wind and rain,
Speaker 1: and in the confusion of packing, my dad was supposed
Speaker 1: to grab the bag that had the food, and he
Speaker 1: ended up like grabbing some ex like the wrong bag.
Speaker 1: So we got there and we just didn't have enough
Speaker 1: food for the time we were supposed to be there.
Speaker 1: And then weather moved in and we got like how
Speaker 1: to stay there for a longer period of time. So
Speaker 1: we went out and shot some deer. We had deer
Speaker 1: tags is great, and now we said, cool, we've got
Speaker 1: all the food we need. Um. So we had fresh meat,
Speaker 1: but we just didn't really have anything to season it with,
Speaker 1: and so we just had to provising. We were pretty
Speaker 1: close to the ocean. So what I ended up doing
Speaker 1: we got some driftwood. We built a large fire. UH.
Speaker 1: Scrounged around and found it like a large flat rock,
Speaker 1: and then I got the UH. I just dunked it
Speaker 1: in the ocean, got a lot of little salty ocean water,
Speaker 1: got got a bunch of extra water to like. I
Speaker 1: actually found a cup. It was like a sports cup
Speaker 1: from probably a tanker that had spilled somewhere in the seas.
Speaker 1: Plastic just shows up in random places. Um and uh.
Speaker 1: So I had that, and so got the hot rocks
Speaker 1: super hot, and they kept pouring the salt water on
Speaker 1: it to use the salt from the ocean to help
Speaker 1: season the meat. And then as the water evaporated, leave
Speaker 1: the salt behind. So he cut strips off and then
Speaker 1: put it on the stone and then cooking on the
Speaker 1: hot rock and cut some the blacktail back fat off
Speaker 1: and use that as well. And it was one of
Speaker 1: the best camp meals we'd ever had. Of course, we
Speaker 1: were extremely hungry, but I kind of thought, let's recreate
Speaker 1: this at home. So what I do is I I've
Speaker 1: actually found a big rock when I was at checker.
Speaker 1: Like part of this recipe is just going and finding
Speaker 1: a big flat stone. And then what you do is
Speaker 1: you can get the barbecue real hot, put the rock
Speaker 1: on there, and get the rock super hot. About an
Speaker 1: inch and a half or more thickness is good for
Speaker 1: retaining heat and then doesn't easily break just as the
Speaker 1: side don't wash the rock before you cook on it,
Speaker 1: but you want it nice and dry when you throw
Speaker 1: it on there. And then after you do that, I
Speaker 1: kind of just like season the top of it with
Speaker 1: a little bit of olive oil, kind of like you
Speaker 1: would have like a cast iron pan. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: for this recipe, and what I'm what we're doing is
Speaker 1: essentially making like a hot rock steaks. I'm cooking it
Speaker 1: on the salted rock, and then I do like a
Speaker 1: chimney cherry sauce outside of that. So you just need
Speaker 1: some core salt, pepper, and clove of garlic, some regano,
Speaker 1: dried parsley, maybe a quarter a couple of light olive oil,
Speaker 1: some Worcestershire sauce, worst shure sauce, that's a good word.
Speaker 1: And uh, and then I make a marinade out of
Speaker 1: that first, and then I'll take the meat put it
Speaker 1: in the marinade, or you can even just do it unmarrinated,
Speaker 1: and then it's time to cook. So what we'll do
Speaker 1: is we'll we'll put the rock on the grill, heat
Speaker 1: it super hot, get of like five degrees like the
Speaker 1: grill probably five degrees for at least five minutes. And
Speaker 1: then what I do is I will pour a bunch
Speaker 1: of salt in the water and get like salty water going.
Speaker 1: Then you're gonna make uh, then you're gonna get like
Speaker 1: a rag or something of the sort and make like
Speaker 1: a mop. So we're gonna dip the mop in the
Speaker 1: salt water and then mop the hot rock with that
Speaker 1: salt water. And you'll notice as that rock heats the water,
Speaker 1: the water burns off, and then we get this nice
Speaker 1: salty rock. I know there's like something you can buy,
Speaker 1: It's like a Himalayan salt rock that you can cook on.
Speaker 1: You could just do that too, but this is kind
Speaker 1: of a d i y version of that. So you
Speaker 1: get that rock nice and salty, and then you don't
Speaker 1: even really need to um salt your steak if you
Speaker 1: don't want. I generally oftentimes just get like a nice
Speaker 1: steak dry. I'll cut slices kind of thin and then
Speaker 1: throw it on that salted hot rock, close it and
Speaker 1: just let it cook and then flip it doesn't even
Speaker 1: maybe two and a half minutes per side pretty quick,
Speaker 1: and then pull it off. I like get pretty rare
Speaker 1: re internal temperature. And then in between the cooking, so
Speaker 1: you like mop the rock and then let it reheat
Speaker 1: so it gets really hot, and maybe do a few
Speaker 1: more passes about that, let it reheat again, and then
Speaker 1: you throw your steak on, so you're you're essentially using
Speaker 1: the salty rock to impart that kind of salt and
Speaker 1: seer onto your steak. You could also do this like
Speaker 1: on a cast iron skillet too. If you don't want
Speaker 1: to do the rock thing, you can you can actually
Speaker 1: take a dry cast iron pan, salt it and then
Speaker 1: throw your stakes in on that. Don't use any oil
Speaker 1: or anything. And you think it would stick, but um,
Speaker 1: it doesn't as long as it's really hot and you
Speaker 1: got that salt in there. And then afterwards, like I'll
Speaker 1: make a chimny cherry sauce or some kind of sauce
Speaker 1: and coat at the top of it, and that can
Speaker 1: be It's really good, like as a finger food or
Speaker 1: even as a as an entree. Just something a little
Speaker 1: bit different. Now, if you're a small game hunter, goose hunter,
Speaker 1: duck hunter. A traditional thing that I cook around the holidays,
Speaker 1: whether it be Christmas or New Year's happens to be duck.
Speaker 1: I like adding a little bit of duck to my
Speaker 1: wild game diet because it's kind of like the fatty
Speaker 1: version of wild game. Wild Games, so lean and I
Speaker 1: kind of also craved some of that fat as well,
Speaker 1: and I find that fat by duck hunting for the
Speaker 1: most part. Now, this this recipe, I was actually in
Speaker 1: uh first year I lived in New Zealand ended up
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's actually a long story, but I
Speaker 1: ended up working, like starting to work for this guy,
Speaker 1: but I didn't have a vehicle at the time, so
Speaker 1: I got dropped off and he just kind of dropped
Speaker 1: me off this like this place we're going to be
Speaker 1: working and they never showed back up. And it's a
Speaker 1: very long story because the guy who owned the place
Speaker 1: didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: was going on. The only person knew what was going
Speaker 1: on was the guy that dropped me off. And so
Speaker 1: me and my buddy Bart were there and we like
Speaker 1: had nothing to eat, and we didn't know where anything was,
Speaker 1: Like town was a very long walk away and it's
Speaker 1: just kind of in the middle of nowhere. And was
Speaker 1: funny because we we was like, oh, we're going hunting
Speaker 1: and we're we end up having this there's the apple
Speaker 1: tree at back and ran into the guy, uh someone,
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, do you mind if we, you know,
Speaker 1: eat these apples? And after like four days, I mean,
Speaker 1: we figured out how to cook apples every which way.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's we lived on just apples because that's
Speaker 1: all we had to eat his apple tree. And the
Speaker 1: guy who owned the place where we're staying, and he's like, man,
Speaker 1: these guys really want apples, you know, and he was
Speaker 1: kind of it was just funny because we ended up
Speaker 1: becoming really good friends. But at the time he he
Speaker 1: didn't like us because he's like, what are these guys
Speaker 1: doing here? Because he's pissed at the guy that dropped
Speaker 1: us off. As just a very confusing story, but we
Speaker 1: ended up just living on these apples for close to
Speaker 1: a week and he noticed. He's like, man, he was
Speaker 1: really like apples. So he came where he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: uh he guys, like, what's the deal with the apples.
Speaker 1: We're like, oh, we don't have any food. He's like, oh, crap, okay.
Speaker 1: So then we just like he realized that we didn't
Speaker 1: know what was going on either, and became very good
Speaker 1: friends and he invited us into his house to eat
Speaker 1: later that year. Um because we cook with so many apples,
Speaker 1: we just uh kept the theme going. You think I'd
Speaker 1: be sick apples. But we end up making this roast
Speaker 1: duck recipe because when the duck season started, we shot
Speaker 1: a bunch of Paradise ducks mallards and and roasted some
Speaker 1: ducks this way. And I actually added a little bit
Speaker 1: of bacon too the recipe there. We by that point
Speaker 1: we had vehicles and everything was sorted out. But this
Speaker 1: is my honey roasted duck recipe, and I think it
Speaker 1: turns out really good. Now you could even just maybe
Speaker 1: do this with a stuffed backstrap. I would think it's
Speaker 1: like a little bit of sweet, little bit of savory.
Speaker 1: But that extra fat in the duck or goose or
Speaker 1: speckled belly goose, it turns out really good. So it's
Speaker 1: just about four apples, some honey, time, butter, rosemary, thyme
Speaker 1: and rosemary pretty much in everything I cook, and then
Speaker 1: some salt and pepper. I like to pluck the duck hole.
Speaker 1: Heat that oven too about four fifty It's gonna go
Speaker 1: in there for about ten to fifteen minutes. So I'll
Speaker 1: dice up the apples. I'll put a little bit of honey,
Speaker 1: some thyme, and some rosemary inside the cavity of the
Speaker 1: duck or goose. And then you can even if you
Speaker 1: want to chop a bacon at a little bit extra fat.
Speaker 1: If it's a real lean bird, you could do that,
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit extra butter in there. Um, But
Speaker 1: what that's gonna do. What that stuffing does is kind
Speaker 1: of holds the moisture in whatever you're cooking. Wild game
Speaker 1: tends to dry out, So anything that we can trap
Speaker 1: that moisture in and prevent it from drying out is
Speaker 1: what we want to do. And then waterfowl I like
Speaker 1: to cook to a fairly rare temperature and maybe one max.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna stuff it, maybe a little salt and
Speaker 1: pepper on it, and put it in a roasting pot
Speaker 1: with a little oil and butter in the bottom, just
Speaker 1: to keep it from sticking and burning, and then throw
Speaker 1: that in the oven about four or fifty. You could
Speaker 1: leave it covered or not. Um, pull it out, check
Speaker 1: the temperature with a meat thermometer or poking it when
Speaker 1: it comes like I like, when the juice is kind
Speaker 1: of running clear pink, that seems to be like the
Speaker 1: right the right time. And then what we're gonna do
Speaker 1: is We're gonna take the honey and just coat the
Speaker 1: bird and honey, and then I'll even throw a little
Speaker 1: bit of more fresh time on the top and then
Speaker 1: put it back under the broil for about five minutes,
Speaker 1: so if it's about one degrees one twenty something like that,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be about perfect. And then put it under
Speaker 1: the broiler. And what we're doing is under the broil,
Speaker 1: crisping the skin with that nice sugary honey, pull it out,
Speaker 1: slice and serve nice crispy skin, duck or goose. Incredible
Speaker 1: wild game meal. Now for the last one. This is
Speaker 1: my absolute, hands down Christmas favorite. It's what I like
Speaker 1: to dub the prime rib style wild game. It's super
Speaker 1: easy to do. Anybody can do it. You can do
Speaker 1: with any game meat and pretty much any cut. I'll
Speaker 1: do it with like I like when I butcher. I've
Speaker 1: talked about this before, but I like to do leave
Speaker 1: like hole cuts. Um, so like all my rounds and
Speaker 1: everything I leave is like a roast, uh, Because I
Speaker 1: just if I want to cut into steaks, I'll do
Speaker 1: it later, or I can cook things whole, slice and serve.
Speaker 1: So this I'll do like with a quarter or a
Speaker 1: half of a backstrap on Thanksgiving this year. I actually
Speaker 1: I shot an access to year a couple of days earlier,
Speaker 1: and then I just did the whole hind quarter whole,
Speaker 1: but I actually removed the bone and then I stuffed it,
Speaker 1: um you can and then trust it up. So I
Speaker 1: stuffed it and trust it like with twine, tied it
Speaker 1: up so it kind of maintained a nice shape. I've
Speaker 1: done this kind of similar thing many different ways, many
Speaker 1: different cuts. You could even take an entire leg of
Speaker 1: a deer and and do this and it probably turn
Speaker 1: out incredible. I mean, bone in. Just go for it.
Speaker 1: It's super simple, super easy. So you can start with
Speaker 1: maybe a third or half a backstrap, and then you
Speaker 1: get say a quarter cup of olive oil, uh, like
Speaker 1: a whole head of garlic, eight to ten cloves, and
Speaker 1: then about three stems of rosemary. Gotta like garlic to
Speaker 1: like this recipe, but I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: do enjoy garlic. Uh. And then you gonna do like
Speaker 1: some ground pepper and chorus ground salts or like McCormick's
Speaker 1: Montreal seasoning something like that. So then what you're gonna do,
Speaker 1: You're gonna combine that garlic, rosemary, and olive oil and
Speaker 1: a food processor and you're blending it all together, so
Speaker 1: you're making essentially a paste. Then you can do this
Speaker 1: one of two ways. You can. You can coat the
Speaker 1: top of it, uh and then let it rest in
Speaker 1: the fridge and let that that flavor in part. Or
Speaker 1: you can coat it later as well. So there's there's
Speaker 1: two different ways I like to do. But you're gonna
Speaker 1: coat it, um let it rest in the fridge. If
Speaker 1: you coat it. If you don't have the time to
Speaker 1: let it rest, you can just season it with some
Speaker 1: salt and pepper, and then we're gonna brown it in
Speaker 1: a really hot skillet. You're gonna want to preathe the
Speaker 1: oven about four fifty degrees and then we're just gonna
Speaker 1: see her whatever it is that's backstrap, is the hind
Speaker 1: cord or whatever it is in that hot skeale. You're
Speaker 1: just gonna see here and brown the outside, and then
Speaker 1: you're gonna throw it in the oven for about seven
Speaker 1: to fifteen minutes. That's like once that internal temperature reaches
Speaker 1: under twenty five degree, is gonna be good. Before I
Speaker 1: put it in the oven, though I put some extra
Speaker 1: of that mixture right on the top, and that mixture
Speaker 1: is going to kind of crust up on the outside,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be awesome. If you don't to see it,
Speaker 1: you don't have to. I just feel like it gives
Speaker 1: it a little bit better crust that way. Um. I
Speaker 1: like the outside to be nice and firm and then
Speaker 1: the inside to be like fairly medium, rare rare. So
Speaker 1: I'll cook it till the internal temperature about and twenty
Speaker 1: five degrees and then I pull it out. If it's
Speaker 1: like if you're doing a whole hind quarter, if you're
Speaker 1: doing a big, big roast, some of the outside will
Speaker 1: be a little bit more overdone, just like a big
Speaker 1: prime rib. You know, you've got your end cuts that
Speaker 1: are a little more done, and then you're just gonna
Speaker 1: be focusing on the temperature, the furthest in the middle
Speaker 1: at least hit and then pull it out, let it rest,
Speaker 1: slice and serve and it. Man, does it turn out good.
Speaker 1: It tastes just like any kind of delicious prime rib
Speaker 1: that you've ever had. I think it's definitely a crowd
Speaker 1: pleaser and super simple. Once you once you do it,
Speaker 1: once you're like, dang, man, that's that's pretty easy. And
Speaker 1: like I said, I do have videos on all these
Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna it's gonna be a big batch
Speaker 1: uploaded on my Remy war on YouTube channel. You can
Speaker 1: go over there and check them out. But it's one
Speaker 1: of those fun things. Man. It's we hunt all season
Speaker 1: and we learned about the success and the other things.
Speaker 1: But you got to be successful in the kitchen until
Speaker 1: you gotta take that what you've harvested and turned into
Speaker 1: something that everybody enjoys. And it's a good time to
Speaker 1: share those stories, those hunt stories and those meals with
Speaker 1: friends and family. So I hope that that's something that
Speaker 1: I am very passionate about sharing food, sharing the hunt,
Speaker 1: and I hope that you do the same this holiday season.
Speaker 1: I just want to say Merry Christmas to everyone, Happy holidays,
Speaker 1: whatever kind of holiday you celebrate, Happy New Year that's
Speaker 1: coming up. I just uh, I've really enjoyed hosting this podcast,
Speaker 1: being a part of, you know, maybe your Thursday, being
Speaker 1: a part of a lot of success and and getting
Speaker 1: to share that with a lot of you. So as
Speaker 1: a little bit of a gift back, I always like
Speaker 1: to do a few different giveaways during the holiday season.
Speaker 1: I've got I talked about it last week, but if
Speaker 1: you missed it, a very large giveaway. It's pretty much
Speaker 1: everything you need to bow hunt, includes a fully set
Speaker 1: up bow Matthews bow customized to your specifications. That's a
Speaker 1: tricky word, specifications. Um. And if you would like it
Speaker 1: set up, I'll even do. We'll even do a pro
Speaker 1: tune through our Solo Hunter Bow shop here in Reno, Nevada.
Speaker 1: So the bow will be set up if you want
Speaker 1: sent to you that way, or we can just send
Speaker 1: you the bow straight from the factory however you want it.
Speaker 1: And then there's gonna be a dozen arrows, day, six arrows,
Speaker 1: some broadheads. I'm pretty much like mimicking my setup, so
Speaker 1: I know it works. It's a great setup. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then also, um, some boots from SNAE Vortex Optic range Finder.
Speaker 1: What else we got in here? We got a lot
Speaker 1: of cool stuff. Oh, a really good prize package from
Speaker 1: Stone Glacier including pack, tent, gators, sleeping bag, all the work.
Speaker 1: So it's like over worth of awesome bow hunting gear.
Speaker 1: So in order to enter that, go to my website
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be do I'm gonna be it's ending
Speaker 1: at the end of the year, so New Year's Eve
Speaker 1: will be the end midnight whatever shut it down New
Speaker 1: Year's Day, I'll probably draw the winner. So go ahead
Speaker 1: and go in there sign up for my mailing list.
Speaker 1: My mailing list is essentially just a place where I
Speaker 1: can give people cool stuff. That's what I like to
Speaker 1: do with it. Most mailing lists are meant to sell stuff.
Speaker 1: I like to just give stuff. So you can go
Speaker 1: in there check that out if you so desire. I
Speaker 1: think it's a it's a pretty sweet package. I hope
Speaker 1: somebody one of you wins it. Well, I mean one
Speaker 1: of you will win it. Someone will be winning it,
Speaker 1: maybe hopefully somebody from the podcast will win it. And
Speaker 1: then just as a special podcast only giveaway, I like
Speaker 1: to do this, as you know, if you followed the
Speaker 1: mini Christmas specials so far, I think was the third one, go,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna post a picture of let's do the prime
Speaker 1: rib style backstrap, okay, And then just as for people
Speaker 1: to listen to the podcast, a little bit of an
Speaker 1: edge up, I've I've got yetti mug and I've got
Speaker 1: essentially a gift card like a tier in dollars worth
Speaker 1: of hunting apparel. But I'll be I'll just I'll be
Speaker 1: buying it for you. You can tell me what you
Speaker 1: want and I will purchase it. You do that. Tender
Speaker 1: to that. Just maybe do what's last year we did
Speaker 1: a mug emoji or some kind of cup emoji. Just
Speaker 1: do the same. That seemed easy. So on that picture
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Raby Warren, go on there, find my thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: put a mug or a cup or something in that
Speaker 1: post and then I'll randomly pick to you people from
Speaker 1: that to win the prizes. Last year, I think the
Speaker 1: person that won the mug or something was in somewhere
Speaker 1: very far away, probably Australia. And I think the cost
Speaker 1: of the shipping it was like seven times the price
Speaker 1: of the mug. So I might just venmo you to
Speaker 1: buy your own mug. If that's the case again this year,
Speaker 1: we'll see how We'll see how it goes down. But
Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: that it was cool and glad. That's one thing I
Speaker 1: love about this podcast and listener is a very good
Speaker 1: broad range of where people are listening in from a
Speaker 1: lot of people from Australia, New Zealand, a lot of
Speaker 1: people from like I guess it would be like Northern Europe, Sweden, Finland,
Speaker 1: quite a few people from England, all all great places,
Speaker 1: and then you know obviously US and Canada. So I
Speaker 1: appreciate you all listening. Happy holidays to everyone out there.
Speaker 1: If you guys think about it, if you end up
Speaker 1: going over there checking out the videos on my YouTube page,
Speaker 1: please I would appreciate it as a gift back to me.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to the YouTube channel. I'm gonna be adding more
Speaker 1: helpful content there, so I'm gonna be trying to build
Speaker 1: that out. If you like these tips and tactics, you're
Speaker 1: gonna see a lot more of that kind of stuff there.
Speaker 1: You're gonna see kind of some feature length films, some
Speaker 1: old hunts, some new hunts, and it's gonna start ramping
Speaker 1: up a lot here as well. So feel free to
Speaker 1: subscribe to that that way you can. I think if
Speaker 1: you there's a an icon where you can get notifications
Speaker 1: of stuff comes on. But if you want to, great,
Speaker 1: If not, you do you Merry Christmas everyone, Happy holidays,
Speaker 1: and until next week, serve that meat upright. That was
Speaker 1: a terrible ending. Let's uh just let's just end with
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas.