Game

Written with the most exotic wild game and fish in mind, this unusual collection features delicious, original recipes designed to please any meat lover's palate, including:

• Deer, wild boar, buffalo, and bear
• Pheasant, quail, and partridge
• Saltwater and freshwater catch
• Rubs, relishes, and marinades
• Trimmings and desserts

Expert author Karen Eagle also reveals the secrets of cooking wild game, from the various techniques for preparing it (such as roasting and smoking) to substitutions that really work. With The Everything Wild Game Cookbook, it's not just "same-old, same-old" for supper any more!

For more than 8,000 years humans have been preserving meat and fish through canning, curing, smoking, and freezing, use techniques that remove the moisture and make it possible to keep meat for much longer than its natural shelf life. However, improper preservation of meat leads to more than 40% of all reported cases of food borne illness according to the Center for Disease Control, meaning it is necessary for everyone to carefully, effectively practice safe storage practices and ensure the meat is well preserved. This book will show any potential meat preserver how to go about the process of storing meat for long term use in a variety of methods, while constantly keeping an eye to the possibility of food borne illness and the loss of freshness. You will learn everything you need to know to start the process of setting aside and preserving your meat, fish, and game. Starting with a series of charts and basic details about different kinds of meat and fish, from venison to beef to salmon, you will learn which animal products store best with which methods, which methods must be avoided, and which diseases are the greatest risk when you store meat. With this information in hand, you will start learning how the freezing, canning, curing, and smoking processes work. You will be given detailed outlines of each process starting with what equipment you will need. Experts in meat preservation have been interviewed and their insights have been included here to provide a detailed and full overview of everything you can expect in the process. From these interviews, you will start the process of understand what you need to effectively preserve meat products. You will learn what can lead to failure for all four methods, what the best possible storage locations are for each, and what materials should be avoided at all costs. Learn how smoking works and the timelines for every form of storage from the moment the animal is butchered to the moment it needs to be preserved. No matter what kind of animal you are preserving, this book will provide the details you need to effectively store the meat for later use.

• wild turkey and oyster stew
• stuffed quail
• pheasant tagine
• venison sausage
• fundamental stocks, brines, sauces, and rubs
• suggestions for interchanging proteins within each recipe

Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2011: Through geographically and gastronomically diverse essays, professional chef Georgia Pellegrini gives a voice to something that's been missing in the discussion of where our food comes from: meat. Faced with a freshly killed turkey and her personal decision to either become vegan or head to the source, Pellegrini picks up a shotgun and learns to hunt her own food. She introduces readers to her teachers and locals around the country who share hunting and cooking tips and impresses upon readers her determination to develop tasty recipes for even the most challenging game, like javelina, with as little waste as possible. More than just a collection of essays or recipes, Girl Hunter is an important addition to the conversation about how we eat and how we live. --JoVon Sotak