Finally got around to processing my birds.

[tallen702]

I typically hunt pheasant and chukar 2 - 3 times a year. I usually chuck the cleaned birds into the chest freezer until I have time to process them into some good stuff. I finally had work slow down enough that I was able to knock everything out over the past two days. I wound up with 8floz of pheasant glace de viande, 12 legs of pheasant confit, and 40 4oz pheasant and chukar with wild rice sausages. I'll vacuum pack Enright with the foodsaver tomorrow and back into the deep freeze it will go.

 

[willtill]

Way, way above my pay grade with what you do with the birds. My hat is off to you.

 

[RFBfromDE]

Those sausages!

 

[Squaregrouper]

Those sausages!

Agreed. Those look marvelous.

 

[Joseph]

I had to look up “pheasant glace de viande”. All of that looks great! Nice work.

 

[gtodave]

Damn. I just breast them out and throw them on the grill. What a neanderthal!

 

[outrider58]

Them sausages look legit!

 

[King Chicken]

Very nice. Please fed ex overnight me a sausage .

 

[RFBfromDE]

Damn. I just breast them out and throw them on the grill. What a neanderthal!

Still do that.

Just save room for a side of sausage!

 

[tallen702]

I'm a graduate of The CIA (no, not the one in Langley, those guys were still the OSS when my alma mater was founded). Charcuterie was one of my favorite classes during my AOS degree portion of the program, and I've carried on the love of curing meats and making sausages ever since.

While I spend more time hauling myself up and down the east coast for work these days (managing other managers) I still like to throw down in the kitchen occasionally.

The sausages:
- 7lb boneless skinless pheasant cut into 1-inch cubes
- 2lb 8oz pork fatback, cut into 1-inch cubes
- 3oz kosher salt
- .5oz ground white pepper
- 1 Tbsp onion powder
- 1 Tbsp Insta Cure No 1. (Aka #1 Prague Powder or TCM #1)
- 1 oz granulated sugar
- .5 oz poultry seasoning
- 1.5 cups ice-cold water
- 1 cup cooked wild rice
- 12-15 feet prepared sheep casings or 5-6 feet prepared pork casings (I used pork for a thicker sausage)

Method:
Combine pheasant and fatback. Add the salt, pepper, onion powder, insta cure, sugar, and poultry seasoning, and mix well. Place in resealable plastic bags, press out all the air, and partially freeze the meat. The meat being partially frozen will prevent the fat from slightly rendering during the grinding process giving you a better texture.

Grind the meat through a medium plate on your grinder, then through the fine plate on your grinder

Transfer the mixture to a mixer with a paddle attachment. Add the water and cooked rice. Mix on low for around 1 minute or until the mixture gets sticky. You may need to mix in batches. If so, divide the water and cooked rice evenly between batches.

Put the mixture into a sausage stuffer and prepare your casings.

Stuff the sausages using an even crank speed while preventing air bubbles from forming in the sausages.

When the casings are filled, pinch links about 5-fingers long. This roughly equates to a 4oz sausage. Twist the links in opposite directions or use butcher's twine to tie them off.

Poach in 170*F water until an internal temperature of 155*F is reached for a minimum of 5 minutes. Remove, shock in an ice bath, and refrigerate overnight (covered).

You can now separate the links and bag the sausages (I prefer vacuum packing) and refrigerate them for up to 7 days, or freeze them for up to 1 year.

To reheat, either pan-fry or grill until the sausages are well browned on the outside and reach a temperature of 165*F for 30 seconds or longer internally.

 

[gtodave]

Poach in 170*F water until an internal temperature of 155*F is reached for a minimum of 5 minutes.

Curious why you do this step and don't just freeze them raw? Is it so they keep shape when you separate them?

 

[Derwood]

Are you hunting wild pheasants and chuckars out west or on game preserves closer to home?

I'm currently training a puppy, so I'm buying some farm-raised chuckars every week and my dog just now far enough along that I'm starting to shoot them in our training. I never think to eat them...maybe I should.

I saved this recipe for my trip to ND later this year to hunt wild birds. Thank you so much for sharing it!

 

[jmb122mp]

Wow... that is impressive and looks delicious!

J

 

[pbharvey]

I had to look up “pheasant glace de viande”. All of that looks great! Nice work.

Me too and I still don't know what it is lol. I generally find pheasant and chukar unremarkable. The best I've done is pheasant masala.
OP your stuff looks fantastic.

 

[remrug]

A cousin had 2 ringnecks she wanted gone. I went and got them and processed them. I put then in a citrus based brine overnight and smoked them the next day. It was the best thing I have ever tasted.

 

[FakeID]

Looks/sounds excellent... Will most certainly save this post. I would like to make some hotdogs before the end of summer and this recipe seems very similar to what i have copied in my planning book from what i can remember.

I just got into the sausage making hobby last fall after years of struggling to eat all the venison i bring home and wanting to do something with the less appetizing ducks. Some snack sticks and sausages sure did make it easier to eat and share.

Cheers to the CIA... My college roommate ended up failing out and changed pace to goto CIA then worked at FL for some time- needless to say i ate well and learned quite a bit his experiences.

Have you seen two guys and a cooler on youtube? It has been one of my guides while stepping into sausage making.. can you recommend any others? Also hank shaw at honest-food . net

Have you tried to smoke these sausages rather than poach in hot water? Curious how that might work out in your opinion.

 

[Derwood]

Looks/sounds excellent... Will most certainly save this post. I would like to make some hotdogs before the end of summer and this recipe seems very similar to what i have copied in my planning book from what i can remember.

I just got into the sausage making hobby last fall after years of struggling to eat all the venison i bring home and wanting to do something with the less appetizing ducks. Some snack sticks and sausages sure did make it easier to eat and share.

Cheers to the CIA... My college roommate ended up failing out and changed pace to goto CIA then worked at FL for some time- needless to say i ate well and learned quite a bit his experiences.

Have you seen two guys and a cooler on youtube? It has been one of my guides while stepping into sausage making.. can you recommend any others? Also hank shaw at honest-food . net

Have you tried to smoke these sausages rather than poach in hot water? Curious how that might work out in your opinion.

Check out Scott Rea Project on youtube. He makes a lot of sausages out of game meats using the traditional British method.

 

[FakeID]

Check out Scott Rea Project on youtube. He makes a lot of sausages out of game meats using the traditional British method.

thanks for the recommendation

 

[ChannelCat]

Looks nice! Bon appetite! Between this post and the garden thread, we have some real hunter gatherers around. Real old school; gotta love it!

 

[tallen702]

Curious why you do this step and don't just freeze them raw? Is it so they keep shape when you separate them?

Habit. Most of the sausages you learn to make in charcuterie are par-cooked in some way, shape, or form. You'll rarely find raw sausages in Germany for example. Brats, Franks, Knackwurst, Bockwurst, Weisswurst, etc. are all smoked or not and then poached before they reach the end consumer. It's a texture thing. If you poach them before grilling, the fat doesn't separate out as much when reheated vs grilling them straight up. That said, these particular sausages are actually fine to cook from raw without prior poaching, but my experience is that they keep better if poached first.

Are you hunting wild pheasants and chuckars out west or on game preserves closer to home?

I'm currently training a puppy, so I'm buying some farm-raised chuckars every week and my dog just now far enough along that I'm starting to shoot them in our training. I never think to eat them...maybe I should.

I saved this recipe for my trip to ND later this year to hunt wild birds. Thank you so much for sharing it!

Game preserves closer to home. Pheasant Valley Farm in Robesonia is my go-to. Mark Wolfskill has a fantastic setup there and great guides. I've never had a bad experience there. I've hunted Mason Dixon Outfitters here in MD which was also good, but if you're going solo, it's less economical. They charge one price for up to 4 hunters, so if you have fewer than 4, it's more expensive than PVF. If you have 4, it's more economical. I also hunted at On Point just across the border on 40 from Keyser's Ridge this year. Another good location. Reasonably priced, but the experience isn't as complete as it is at PVF. They're very fast on the hunts (1.5 hours vs 3 hours) the ground isn't as interesting, it's smaller, and they only breast out the birds (PVF gives you the entire bird, not just the breasts). I'd love to hunt out west. My goal is to eventually do so. I want to hunt the Dakotas, Montana, Colorado, etc. I want to go not just for birds, but pronghorn, elk, moose, and mule deer. Someday......

Me too and I still don't know what it is lol. I generally find pheasant and chukar unremarkable. The best I've done is pheasant masala.
OP your stuff looks fantastic.

Thanks! It's all about preparation.

A cousin had 2 ringnecks she wanted gone. I went and got them and processed them. I put then in a citrus based brine overnight and smoked them the next day. It was the best thing I have ever tasted.

Cured, brined, and then hot smoked pheasants are amazingly good. When I was a sous chef at The Red Fox at Snowshoe, we had a smoked pheasant salad that was amazing. I took it with me and added it to the menu when I became the Exec Chef at Daniel O'Connell's (search for Daniel O'Connell's in the linked article) back in its golden era when Mark Kirwan was the managing partner (Mark now owns Samuel Beckett's and Kirwan's on the Warf). Hand-pulled cured smoked pheasant, spring greens, chevre cheese, dried cherries, dried blueberries, sultanas (golden raisins), candied nuts, shaved red onion, granny smith apple, and boar bacon all tossed together with a warm bacon-molasses-cider vinaigrette. We also did a killer pheasant ravioli that had smoked pheasant, chopped hazelnuts, and ricotta inside saffron pasta purses that were served with a soy-ginger beurre blanc.

Looks/sounds excellent... Will most certainly save this post. I would like to make some hotdogs before the end of summer and this recipe seems very similar to what i have copied in my planning book from what i can remember.

I just got into the sausage making hobby last fall after years of struggling to eat all the venison i bring home and wanting to do something with the less appetizing ducks. Some snack sticks and sausages sure did make it easier to eat and share.

Cheers to the CIA... My college roommate ended up failing out and changed pace to goto CIA then worked at FL for some time- needless to say i ate well and learned quite a bit his experiences.

Have you seen two guys and a cooler on youtube? It has been one of my guides while stepping into sausage making.. can you recommend any others? Also hank shaw at honest-food . net

Have you tried to smoke these sausages rather than poach in hot water? Curious how that might work out in your opinion.

The original recipe from Chef Kowalski states to cold smoke them and then grill, bake, or fry them. The poaching technique is from his German-style bratwurst recipe which I find helps to keep the shape when vacuum sealing for long-term storage. Kowalski's "The Art of Charcuterie" is an amazing cookbook that is worth every penny if you like this kind of stuff.