Cover Packages

Food Fight: Breakfast Burrito vs. Hash

Sarah Smith — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:13:35 -0500

by David Draper

As much as I love the freelance lifestyle, the one negative effect it has is on my waistline, much of which I attribute to the proximity of my desk to the fridge. While it is nice to have all-day access to a kitchen, it’s sometimes too easy to overeat. And much of what I overeat comes in the form of some type of breakfast dish. (Whether or not it’s before noon, doesn’t matter. Another benefit of freelancing.) Here are two simple favorites, one that has ridden a wave of popularity recently, while the other remains a humble standard served at late-night diners across the country.

The Breakfast Burrito

A breakfast burrito of some sort, even if it’s just a scrambled egg, some cheese and a tortilla, is a near-daily staple here at my house. It’s quick. It’s easy. I can eat it with one hand and type with the other – the perfect meal. For this rendition, I marinated some caribou strips in tequila and lime juice, with a bit of cumin and a touch of cinnamon. Fried up with some diced potatoes and soft scrambled eggs, they were another evolution of my pasión for anything wrapped in a tortilla.

Hash

I love leftovers of most any kind and take some pride in extending the edibility of a single dish for a week or more. Here I’ve gotten a third meal out of one roasted duck, which I first featured here at Food Fight Friday a couple weeks ago. After making duck soup with the carcass, I diced up a piece of breast meat that survived the original melee, along with the leftover steamed broccoli and duck-fat-roasted potatoes, and fried it up in duck fat with one egg, over hard. As much as I loved the original meal, I think this quick and easy lunch was even better.

We’ve got one great reader photo that I’m saving for next week’s Food Fight in the hopes someone will step up for a head-to-head battle. If you think you’ve got what it takes, send your best food photo to fswildchef@gmail.com.

Christina Tosi’s Recipe for Crack Pie

Dave_Maccar — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 09:03:23 -0400

OK, so maybe if grandma is at the Thanksgiving dinner table, you might not want to tell her she’s about to eat “Crack” Pie. Just tell her it’s a new pie that’s sorta like pecan pie only without the pecans, and you should be safe.

This recipe comes from Christina Tosi, pastry chef of the Momofuku restaurants in New York City. Tosi is a mad scientist when it comes to desserts—and I mean that in the best possible way. She deep-fries apple pie. She bakes cookies with potato chip crumbs and pretzels in them. And in this recipe, she’s concocted a pie recipe that’s both delicious and, as the name implies, addictive. Trust us.

We’re not saying you should get rid of the pumpkin pie all together. Not at all. Just that you should make room for a Crack Pie, too. Because, after all, where’s the harm in extra pie at Thanksgiving?

Below you’ll find the recipe for Tosi’s Crack Pie. But, if you don’t have time to bake it at home, you can order it online and have one (or two) shipped to your home. And don’t worry: We won’t tell if you still take credit for it. —Colin Kearns

Ingredients

Crack filling
1 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup, plus 1 tsp., milk powder
3/4 cup, plus 1 tbsp., heavy cream
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
8 large egg yolks (per pie)

Oat Cookie Dough for Crust
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup light brown sugar
3 tbsp. sugar
1 large egg (per pie)
2/3 cup, plus 1 tbsp., all purpose flour
1 scant cup rolled oats
1/8 scant tsp. baking powder
1/8 scant tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

Oat Crust (yields two 10-inch pie crusts)
Oat Cookie (all oat cookie from above)
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 tbsp. light brown sugar
1/8 tsp. salt

Directions

The crust:
1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and cream once more. Add the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. Pam-spray a quarter sheet pan with parchment and spread the oat cookie dough evenly on the sheet pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.
4. Cool the oat cookie completely. Keep the oven at 350 degrees. In a microwave, gently melt your butter on a med/low setting for 15-30 seconds. Let it cool until it is not hot to the touch before proceeding.
5. Once cool, crumble the oat cookie by hand or in a food processor, mixing in melted/softened butter, brown sugar and salt. Divide the oat crust evenly over two 10-inch pie tins (two pies is always better than one). Using your fingers and the palm of your hand, press the oat cookie crust firmly into each pie tin. Place both pie shells on a sheet pan and prepare the filling for the pie.

The pie filling:
1. Gently melt the butter on the stove or in a microwave. In a large bowl, whisk together sugars, salt and milk powder. Add the melted butter to the bowl and whisk until all the dry ingredients are moist. Add the heavy cream and vanilla and whisk until the white from the cream has completely disappeared into the mixture. Add the egg yolks and gently whisk in the egg yolks just to combine.
2. Divide the crack pie filling evenly over both crusts. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. During this time, the crack pie will still be very jiggly, but should become golden brown on top. Open the oven door and reduce the baking temperature to 325 degrees. When the oven reads 325 degrees, close the door and finish baking the crack pie for 5 minutes. At 5 minutes, the crack pie should still be just barely jiggly. If too loose, leave the pies in the oven an additional 5 minutes in the 325 degree oven.
3. Cool your pies completely, refrigerate or freeze. Slice each pie into 8 slices and serve cold.

The Hunter’s Leftovers: Sandwiching

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:59:09 -0400

You’re parked on the couch, falling into a food coma and looking forward to a hunt tomorrow. You’d better wake up early enough to spend some time in the kitchen, because inside the fridge are all the fixings you need to make the perfect field lunch. One that’s easy to fix. That’s compact, yet substantial. That requires no cleanup. The leftover sandwich—a meal so delicious it rivals Thursday’s main event.

First, the bread. This is the only part you need to buy specifically for the sandwich, so splurge on a good, crunchy loaf from a bakery and have it sliced thick. I like mine lightly toasted and slabbed with mayo. Next, the fixings. Pile some turkey on one slice. What follows depends on the leftovers you scored. To the other bread slice I usually smear layers of mashed potatoes, stuffing, and maybe some green bean casserole.

Finally, the secret ingredient: cranberry sauce. Homemade sauce will do, but I swear by the canned goods. I find the stuff addictively delicious, plus it makes practical sandwich sense because you can cut it into thin rounds—just as if you were slicing a tomato for a BLT. When you’re all set, join both halves, slightly flatten with a light smash, and wrap in foil.

Eat this in your treestand or inside a duck blind. Eat it on a stump in the grouse woods or with your back against a fence in a pheasant field. Share it with your daughter on the back of your truck. This sandwich will taste good anywhere. With so many leftovers in the fridge, it’ll taste good when you make it again tomorrow. And again the day after that. —Colin Kearns

The Hunter’s Tradition: Gathering

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:52:59 -0400

It’s been 389 years since the Pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving at Plymouth, Mass. While scholars are still arguing over details of what happened during the three-day feast, I can guarantee a couple of facts: The Pilgrims were not watching football during those three days, and they were eating venison.

As much as possible, my friends and I stay true to these original traditions by gathering for our annual Thanksgiving feast at my brother Matt’s house in Miles City, Mont. It’s a place surrounded by a tremendous variety of delicious wild game, and the Thanksgiving season happens to be a perfect time to gather it. We disperse in the early-morning darkness in groups of three or four. Some of us might head south with a load of goose decoys to set up in a winter-wheat field along the Tongue River; then, in the late morning, we swap our steel BB shot for lead and head toward the cattail- and willow-coated islands where heavily pressured pheasants tend to gather. Others might head east to the badlands above the Yellowstone River to glass for mule deer; once the sun is high, they’ll take .22s to look for cottontails that are sunning themselves outside of abandoned prairie-dog burrows.

We gather back at the house in the late afternoon. Half of us do prep work in the kitchen, and half of us go to the garage for skinning and plucking duties. Our kill of the day is rounded out by the offerings that everyone brought in from his corner of the country: smoked salmon from Alaska, dried morels from Washington, an elk loin from southwest Montana.

It’s difficult to argue that these are “traditional” Thanksgiving meals, especially since no two are ever the same. Yet, to me, the tradition runs deeper than just a matter of ingredients. Each meal is a celebration of the land, the animals, and the skills that allow us to thrive here. These are things for which every outdoorsman should be thankful. —Steven Rinella

The Hunter’s Job: Carving

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:45:15 -0400

There may be other deeds more laden with American pomp than carving a Thanksgiving turkey—folding the Stars and Stripes comes to mind—but there aren’t many that train so keen a spotlight on a single moment, a single person, a single act with a knife in hand. The bird has been in the oven long enough to send its aroma wafting through the house, and now the gathered clan sits at the table, gawking at all the wedding china and silver that has emerged from the attic on a schedule similar to that of Halley’s comet. All eyes turn to the turkey. Cue up Norman Rockwell. And don’t screw it up.

By now you should have paved the way for a civil service. Go ahead and decide which kids get the drumsticks before you say grace—no use ruining the meal with a fistfight right out of the gate. Let folks know they shouldn’t eat till Grandma first lifts her fork. No cursing. No ketchup bottles on the table. And honestly, it’s a celebration, so if little Johnny wants to slip a whoopee cushion under Grandpap’s seat, where’s the harm?

But know this: The very act of carving a turkey—especially a wild turkey—changes the game at the table. It’s the moment when something—the essence of which is undeniably, unabashedly wild—transfigures into the very building block of civilization: human food. Each of us closes that circle with a fork.

It’s a metamorphosis worthy of a moment’s contemplation, at the least, and worthy of the giving of thanks. And for the sake of Ben Franklin and all things pure and true, forgo any blade that comes with a power cord sticking out of the handle. —T. Edward Nickens

The Hunter’s Moment: Blessing

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:39:18 -0400

Give us this day our daily bread…

I’m the last one out of the kitchen. When I step into the dining room the lump that has been inching toward the top of my stomach suddenly vaults to my throat, and I have to shut my eyes for just a passing few seconds. Let the wave of emotion settle down. This happens every year.
Every Thanksgiving.

Give us another dawn with golden light in the decoys, light that lifts our hearts toward heaven…

Family rings the table—half of us half mad from a half day spent toiling in the kitchen, but somehow laughter still rings across the room. There is an embarrassment of food on the table. But my eyes move over the country ham and collard greens, the sweet potatoes with their crown of caramelized marshmallows. Oddly enough, the food hardly registers. It’s the sheer, incalculable weight of blessing that rocks me back on my heels. Every face reflects a memory of time outdoors: My wife hanging on to the console, the boat bucking in a horrid blow, lightning crackling. A little girl asleep on my shoulder, as the first deer steps out of the woods. My mother beside me at the base of a squirrel tree, white-gray curls barely controlled by a camouflage cap.

Give us a sunset whose promise is tomorrow. Give us a hunger to taste the wild places that yet remain…

And also the blessings left behind by those no longer gathered here, the ones who have gone on to where they are either eternally thankful for a life marked by a pursuit of grace, or eternally not. But they still have their place at the table: In the cranberry salad, still prepared by consulting a ragged slip of paper, the recipe scrawled in faded pencil. In the slight dimple of a granddaughter’s chin, the green eyes of a grandson. Tracks of the ancestors. Seeing this, sensing this, I shut my eyes again.

Give us this day a glimpse of the glory found in the quiet pool of a stream, in the wild cackle of a goose…

Then we join hands, child to child, husband to wife, man to man—generations linked by intertwined fingers and futures—and I sneak in one last look, a quick glance beyond the turkey and the table to the faces lined around. I bow my head to pray.

Give us this day. —T. Edward Nickens

How To Hunt Fall Turkeys (For Your Thanksgiving Feast)

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:13:39 -0400

Fall was the original turkey season. We eat turkey at Thanksgiving, not Easter, yet the generation of hunters that came of age during the bird’s “great comeback” sees turkey hunting as a spring-only pursuit. Although many turkey hunters have never tried it, they’ll tell you the fall hunt is boring (“Turkey hunting is all about the gobble”) or wrong (“I’d never kill a hen”).

They’re missing out. Half a dozen lost turkeys converging on you from six different directions gets your heart going every bit as fast as a spring gobbler at 30 steps does. Shooting a hen is no more wrong than shooting an antlerless deer, and after you’ve had a 10-pound hen or even a 6-pound poult roasted whole for Thanksgiving, a Butterball will never satisfy you again. If you’re determined to shoot gobblers only, they’re out there in the fall, by the flock.

You already own the gear you need. You just have to adjust your attitude and learn a couple of new skills. Certainly there are plenty of turkeys out there for you to chase. If you complained about gobblers being henned up all spring, here’s your chance to do something about it by improving the local tom-to-hen ratio.

TACTICS
Bagging a fall bird is not as easy as getting a gobbler fired up, like you would in spring. Here are the best ways to get your turkey in the autumn season.

Scatter and Recall
This classic fall turkey tactic is also the most fun. You sneak close—almost within gun range—of a flock of hens and poults, then take your shells out of your gun and rush the birds, screaming, waving your arms, and trying to scatter turkeys in all directions. A good break is crucial. If the birds see you and run off together, all you’ve accomplished is scaring them away. But if they fly away, usually they fan out enough that you can go 100 to 200 yards in the direction they flew and set up. The perfect break, though, sends turkeys to all points of the compass. The best flock busters are turkey dogs, where legal. They can cover more ground, smell out turkeys, and scatter flocks better than humans can. Sit down at the scatter point, wait a few minutes to let the woods settle, then start calling. Soon turkeys will surround you, calling to one another as they regroup. Chime in with kee kees and/or lost yelps of your own. You could have birds in range within 10 to 15 minutes.

Get Under a Roost
Once you locate a roost, you can sneak in and set up in the dark the next morning, as you would in spring. In one hour under a fall roost, you will hear more different turkey sounds than you will throughout an entire spring season, including gobbles. You may find 50 to 60 birds roosted together. When that many turkeys fly down, there’s a lot of calling back and forth as they sort themselves out to start the day. Yelp and cluck quietly. A decoy might help here, but it’s not essential.

Challenge a Flock
Turkeys are usually curious about new birds and how they fit into the pecking order. Walk along logging roads and ridgetops, near field edges, or where your scouting leads you to believe that turkeys are within earshot and call, yelping and cutting. Have a flock patterned? Set up between the roost and their breakfast, put out a hen decoy, and yelp occasionally. When you get an answer, call back with an aggressive response. Do it right and the whole flock will come running, ready to rumble.

Provoke a Gobbler
To call a fall gobbler, you have to sound like one. Use gobbler yelps to strike a bird. When you get a reply, come back with feisty yelps and angry purrs. Catch birds in the right mood, and they will treat you to a strutting and gobbling show that matches a spring hunt.

CALLING
Turkeys speak the same language in fall as they do in spring. The difference is, in fall you make female sounds to female turkeys and male sounds to male turkeys. Have these calls in your autumn repertoire:

Kee Kee Run
Kee kees are the go-to call after you break up a flock of hens and poults. They can also work as a locator. The kee kee is the sound a poult makes because it’s too young to “break” a yelp. It’s a high-pitched whistle that sounds like hurry, hurry, hurry or boy, boy, boy. To make the sound on a mouth call, simply draw out the high-pitched first half of the yelp. A yelp is kee-yoke. You’re just doing the kee part three or four times. Now and then, mix the kee kees with yelps.

Lost Yelp
A lost hen makes a series of as many as 10 to 15 plaintive yelps. This call works as a locator for flocks of hens and mixed flocks of hens and poults.

Gobbler Yelp
Gobblers make a low, hoarse yelp, delivered at a slow cadence. Often, gobblers will yelp just a couple of times rather than make longer runs. Use two to three yelps and occasionally add an aggressive purr as if you’re looking for a fight.

Gobble
If you’re having a hard time getting a tom to respond, try using a gobble to challenge a dominant bird or a flock of gobblers to charge in for a fight.

SCOUTING
Without wound-up gobblers sounding off, locating turkeys is a lot harder than in spring. Here’s the primer for how to find fall birds. Turkeys are flocked up in fall, but not always in the same place you saw them in spring. Some fall flocks can be patterned to the minute; others are maddeningly random. Still, if you know where they roost and where they eat, you can figure out where they’re going to be throughout the day. In the fall, adult gobblers patch up their breeding-season differences and band together, sometimes in flocks of a dozen or more. You’ll see hens and poults in groups as small as five or six or as large as 60. Here’s where to find them:

Open Areas
Until the first hard frosts of the year, turkeys feed on leafy browse and all the grasshoppers they can catch in fields of longer grasses. Seek out turkeys in pastures, too. An overturned cow pie is a sure sign the birds have been there; they’ll pick the corn out, then flip the patty to expose insects underneath. After the harvest, glass for turkeys in fields of corn, wheat, and beans.

Wooded Areas
As mast drops, look for V-shaped scratchings in the leaves as well as tracks and droppings in oak flats. A turkey-size depression in loose dirt indicates a dust bath, and if you see lots of feathers and droppings around, birds are probably using it regularly at midday.

Roosts
Turkeys will change roosts during the fall, depending on where they’re finding food. A roost tree may hold whole flocks, resulting in droppings and feathers piled barnyard-deep around the trunk. You can also pin down a roost as you would in spring, by sitting on a high spot on a calm evening and listening for the sound of big wings lifting heavy bodies into the air.

FALL GEAR
What you use in spring will work in autumn. But if you’re looking to update or add to your turkey gear, here’s what to get:

Gun:
You can hunt with your 12-gauge—I do—or a smaller gun. Most fall turkeys are less than half the size of a mature gobbler. A youth-model 20-gauge like the Remington Model 870 Express Youth ($373; remington.com) or the Mossberg 500 Super Bantam Pump-Action Turkey ($389; mossberg.com) is enough gun and easier to tote through the woods than a 12-gauge. Shots are usually closer in fall, but stick with a supertight choke, as you may have to shoot one bird out of a bunch without hitting any others with stray pellets.

Ammo:
You don’t need as heavy a load in fall as you do in spring. If you’re shooting hens or poults, 13⁄4 ounces of size 6 shot is sufficient because the vitals are slightly smaller and the bones are not as tough. (Winchester Supreme High Velocity Turkey 3-inch shotshells, $20 for 10 rounds;winchester.com)

Vest:
This strap vest with a built-in chair lets you sit anywhere in comfort, but it folds up for running and gunning. (RedHead Bucklick Creek High-Back Turkey Lounger, $70; 800-920‑4400; basspro.com)

Boots:
Snakes or no snakes, these are wonderful turkey hunting boots: comfortable, supportive, and tall enough for you to wade small streams. (Cabela’s Gore-Tex Cordura Snake Boots, $130; 800-237‑4444; cabelas.com)

Binoculars:
Light, compact, and with rubber armor coating, good glasses like these are fall essentials. Quality optics help you spot birds in fields and distinguish hens from gobblers. (Zeiss Conquest 8x30, $625; 800-441‑3005; zeiss.com)

Decoy:
The roll-up decoy weighs nothing in your gamebag and looks like a real hen. Put out one to represent a lost turkey, or a few to resemble birds regrouping after a scatter. (Flambeau Upright Hen, $20; 800-232‑3474; decoys.com)

Calls:
The following are especially well suited for the autumn season:
• This old favorite double-sided box makes hen yelps on one side, gobbler yelps on the other. (Lynch World Champion Box Call, $45; 229-226‑5793; lynchworldwide.com)
• The best mouth call for fall gobblers is a three- or four-reed diaphragm that’s loosened up with age and use. The World Champ has four medium-thick reeds, great for making low-pitched gobbler yelps. (Quaker Boy Screamin’ Green World Champ, $7.29; 800-544‑1600; quakerboy.com)
• With two thin reeds, this diaphragm creates high-pitched whistles with ease. (Quaker Boy Kee Kee, $5.69; 800-544‑1600; quakerboy.com)

Side Dish: Purée of Rutabaga with Sage and Fried Onions

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:09:03 -0400

Ingredients:
2 lbs. rutabaga
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 oz. unsalted butter
4 sprigs fresh sage
1 small onion, sliced into 1/8-inch rings
Flour for dredging
1 quart canola oil for frying
Salt

Directions:
•Peel and cut rutabaga into 2-inch chunks.
• Place in 4-quart saucepot cover with water; season well with salt and simmer for about 20 minutes or until it’s very tender. Drain well in colander.
• In same saucepot, boil cream and reduce by half; add sage leaves as the pot comes off the heat. Place drained and cooked rutabaga in blender (in batches if needed), add cream and blend well until very smooth. Add butter and blend again checking for seasoning. Reserve warm.
• In a clean 4-quart saucepot, heat oil to approximately 350 degrees (a water droplet should boil, hiss, and evaporate quickly).
• Lightly flour then fry onion slices in batches until just golden brown and crisp. Allow to drain and cool on paper towels.
• Serve hot puree with crisp onions.

Side Dish: Yukon Gold Potato Purée

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:21:27 -0400

Ingredients:
1 lb. Yukon gold potatoes
4 oz. heavy cream
4 oz. unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

Directions:
• Peel and dice potatoes into even 1 1/2-inch cubes; cover with water and reserve.
• Place potatoes in a large saucepot, add salt and bring to a boil; simmer until just done. (Tip of knife easily penetrates the potato, but it does not fall apart.) Drain very well in colander.
• Heat cream in small saucepot to just below simmer; reduce by half, season with salt and pepper, and begin sieving potatoes through fine mesh screen or ricer into the sauce pot with the cream on a low flame burner, adding the butter as you go.
• Remove from heat, check seasoning and reserve warm until ready to serve.

Side Dish: Truffled Mac & Cheese

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:14:46 -0400

Ingredients:
1 cup orzo, cooked then lightly tossed with 1 tsp white truffle oil
3 oz. heavy cream
6 oz. chicken stock
6 tbsp. manchego cheese, shredded
Kosher salt and cracked black pepper to taste

Directions:
• Heat cream and chicken stock in a saucepan.
• Add orzo and cheese and cook for approximately 2 minutes.
• Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Serve warm.