December 24, 2024 • 34 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now we're going to talk to Hank Shaw, who his
career progression I must admit, is fascinating, and he somehow
makes a living doing what it appears he really really
loves to do. He's written a series of books, and
I guess they must be successful because he keeps doing it.
The latest of which I guess is Buck Buck Moose.
(00:21):
Recipes and Techniques for Cooking Deer, elk Antelope, Moose, and
Other Antlered Things. Hank, how on earth did you end
up here?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It's been a long and twisted trip. I tell you
that it's hard to say. Actually. I mean, I've been
a forager, you know, picked wild plants and berries, mushrooms
and things. And I've been a fisherman my entire life.
But I didn't pick up hunting until I was an adult.
So it's been an interesting last sixteen seventeen years that
(00:51):
i've been all three.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Well, I want to work backward. Your most recent publication
is Buck Buck Moose, and that's your recipes for cooking things,
for cooking obviously antlered things. As you say, and you
make the point that venison is probably more than any
other meat, the one that people don't cook, right, Why
(01:14):
is that I.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Think it's a tradition. We would probably be the cookedt way
to put it, because there's such a deep family tradition
in cooking and eating the deer or the antelope or
the elk or whatever it is that you bring home,
that there's very strong family recipes like we do it
this way, and often they're rooted in you know, the
(01:37):
bad old days of the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties and
early seventies, when we overcooked everything and we were worried
about food safety and all this sort of stuff. I
can't tell you how many times I've seen people cook
venison backstrap medium well or well done.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
And it just makes the sad and how should it
be cooked?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Just like you want your steak? So medium rare is
my favorite. Some people like it dead rare, some people
like it a solid medium. But as long as it's
you know, you want it tink, you want juices running,
just like you would a ravi and you know, I mean,
people don't make that leap sometimes and it's a little bizarre.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Well, we're not going to be able to replicate the
book in a radio interview, but let's try. You say,
my favorite, my favorite part of the book isn't the recipes, however,
as much as I love them. It is the opening section,
which covers everything you need to know from the moment
that deer's on the ground, skinning, gutting, butchering, processing, food safety,
(02:34):
differences in species, in species and within species depending on
region and diet and age and sex, aging meat. A
discussion of why venison fat isn't all bad wines and
beers that go well with venison. Now you got my attention.
The first one hundred pages are the result of years
of research. All right, So we've just made the kill.
(02:54):
I don't know if you've done any hunting in Texas,
but we've just made the kill of a of a
white tail. Take me from there? What what what do
we start doing from there?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, a lot of times in Texas it's gonna be
fairly warm, uh, so you're gonna need to get the
get the guts out of the animal real quick. Uh.
And then for me, unless you've got to walk in
cooler nearby, you take it out of the skin, because
the biggest thing you need to do is cool that
meat as fast as possible. So that's sort of question
number one. Some people don't do that, and that's that
(03:27):
can lead to you know, that gamy taste that everybody
talks about where oh, you know Benson's gaming. It's it's
usually the case of poor meatcare and not cooling the
meat is kind of your your quickest way to get
that to that bad result. But once you have it
down and you've skinned it, you've got it in a
warm climate, you know, because you know, I've been in
(03:49):
I've been south of Houston in Bay City in November,
and it's not exactly the coolest, coolest place in the world.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
And it's funny, Hank, because I was reading about your
northern Minnesota exploits and now you're out in Cali, and
I was thinking, does this kind of what it's like
to hunt Texas? Go ahead?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yep, it's sweaty, yes. And so I usually had big
marine coolers, you know, like you go tunea fishing with,
and I'll have them in the truck and you know,
I'll put the deer only into pieces that will just
barely fit, so you know, you quarter it. One thing
you never do is do any kind of fine butchery
(04:25):
in the first twenty four hours. And the reason for
that is rigor mortis. So if you cut any animal
while it's still in vigor, the meat is going to
be eternally tough. There's virtually nothing you can do to
make it tender again. And it's a very common mistake.
Butcher is called this shortening. So imagine like your muscles
are a rubber band, and when you're when the animal
(04:49):
is still in rigid, the rubber band is very taut.
So if you cut the ends of that rubber band,
they snap back and they stay that way. It's kind
of like when your sister used to used to say that,
you know, if you made a face at your sister,
she's it's gonna stay that way. It's never gonna go away.
And this is the same thing that happens. So you
you ever now and again you hear stories of somebody
who's had a nice little button buck or a young
(05:12):
doe like, oh man, I mean it was still tough.
I don't know what happened with that. That's usually what happened.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
So you want it quartered and cooled as fast as possible, yep.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
And then you let it sit. You know, you just oh,
by the way, you never you never put the meat
in direct content. You never put the meat in direct
contact with the ice. So I put plastic bags or
blap sacks or something like that and keep the drain
open on the on the coolers so that they stay
cool but they don't get soaked. The worst thing you
(05:42):
can do is soaking venison, because what happens it gets
pale and washed out and you lose a lot of flavor.
But you also invite bacteria in it. So if that
water or that ice rises above forty degrees, then you
have a bacterial breeze ground and nobody wants that. So
that's just sort of a fine point for those people.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Oh sorry, go ahead hang so.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You know, once you have it, you know, sitting and
it's draining and it's cool and it's nice, and it
doesn't have to be super super cool because water water
is your enemy. Only if water is worn and if
you can get again, if you're close to a locker
or if you're you know, you can keep things very cool,
have at it. But I've had need to hang in
(06:28):
under a tree in eighty degree weather with a game
bag on it to keep the flies off, and it's
been fine. So it needs a little bit more durable
than you might think. But you do need to keep
it dry if it's not cold.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I've heard reference to and ten Nugent made the point,
especially with birds, is is kind of dry aging and
letting this meat break down. Do you have any rules there?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
I do, And in fact, it's if you have the
ability to dry age. And I'm talking about dry age.
I'm talking about a minimum of two weeks and three
weeks is better if you if you can do that
for you know, hind legs and the backstrap. And basically
you only want to dry age things that you're going
(07:14):
to cook medium rare, So you don't need to dry
age the whole carcass if you don't want to. I mean,
there's it's not gonna hurt it. But you're going to
cook the heck out of a neck roast or a
shoulder wrist anyway, So it doesn't need to be dry
age to make it tender because the long slow cooking
does that. So what I'll do is I'll dry age
hind legs or whole big link to the backstrap and
(07:36):
then do it that way. And I only really do
that with wall hangers, you know, like a big buck
or a big bull moose or a big you know
bull elf. And the reason is because they're so old.
If you think about it, any neat that you get
in the store is not going to be any older
than two years old. Even good, high quality, well aged,
(08:00):
that cow is not more than two years old.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Hank, I'm going to hold you right there. Hankshaw is
our guest. The book is Buck Buck Moose. He also
wrote Hunt, Gather, Cook, and Duck Duck Goose. We'll talk
more with him coming up the Michael Barry Show. Barry Show.
We're talking to Hank Shaw, and he's the author of
(08:23):
Buck Buck Moose, among other things, on how to cook
the deer you bring home this season, and you were
talking about when you go to the butcher shop, and
that meat is never more than two years old.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Go ahead, right, So you know the thing about an
aged animal. So everybody likes to say that the young,
the young ones are the most tender, and that's true,
it's absolutely true. But the best chasing venison, in my opinion,
is an old wall hanger that's been properly aged. And
here's why. So think about yourself, right, So think about
(08:55):
your current self, and I'll think about yourself when you were, say,
eighteen years old. Aren't you more interesting now than you
were then?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Fair enough? Yeah, I hope so.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
But if you're anything like me, you're a little older,
a little tougher, a little more stream. And so the
thing is, the deer are the same way. So if
you age that and let the enzymes in the meat
break that meat down and concentrate it and tenderize it,
that means going to be far more interesting. It's far
more delicious than say a butt buck. But if you
(09:29):
can't dry age it, that big old bull or that
big old wallhanger deer is going to be as tough
as nails. So it's a catch twenty two.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Sorry, it doesn't make for good radio when I stop
and ponder when someone says something. But I'm stopping him
pondering because you're talking about this. All right. So my
brother processes his own meat and makes a big mess
of his house when he does so. But most people
don't want to do that. They're going to take it
to someone to process it. Do you have some vice
(10:00):
on that?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I actually question that. I did a survey and I
got a thousand responses, and of the thousand responses, only
about one hundred and fifty people who responded said that
they that they regularly take all their animals to the process. Really, yeah,
and what are found among the detections in the southerners
because you guys can kill a lot of deer, and
most of the rest of the country you get one
(10:23):
or two a year, so they're a little bit more
precious to river hunted it.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Now, are you going off of your blog, which is
what hunter Angler Gardner.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Cook it is?
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And you're going off of that blog because you're talking
to insiders. I'm talking about a general population of I mean,
I kid with my brother that he does this and
how much work goes into it. But I'm having trouble
believing that that many people do this themselves. I think
there are those like you that do it. I think
most people like me or lazy and go here. How
much do I owe you I bring.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
This back there? I betually that's fair and it's also
probably regional too. So let's just all right. So if
you're at the processor, biggest thing that you do you
have to do is you have to make a friend
of your processor, because if your butcher is like most butchers,
they're running through dozens of deer a day, so that
butcher is going to be busy, busy, busy, And I
(11:14):
can't tell you how many stories I've heard of, you know, Oh,
I didn't get my tender lings back, or I shot
a button buck and I got an old ruddy buck
back in burger, or they didn't put you know, they
didn't grind beef fats in with my burger, or they
didn't put b side into my burger. So you really
want to be friends with your butcher before hunting season,
because if you want that butcher to pay attention to
(11:36):
your deer, because that's all you know, you work for it,
you deserve the best back.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You know. It's interesting. Ted Nugent made the point that
he's seen in many cases that a butcher will take
you know, five or ten and lay them out and
do piece by piece and just kind of hand it,
you know, you know, organize it over here and making sure,
as you said, that you're getting back what you hope for.
The frustration is it's like dropping off your car picking
(12:03):
it up two days later. I mean, you hope he did.
But it's even worse because you don't know what they
were doing while while you weren't there. So I guess
I guess that's just a trust question more than anything else.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
It really is, it really is. I mean, especially because
let's say you're you're a sticker and you've done everything
right with meat care and the guy who brought the
deer in in front of you was wild. You think
you want your dear back and not that guy's deer
right right, And you know, a good processor, if you
know the guy, you're friends with them, you'll get your
gear back. But if it's just you know, if you
(12:34):
don't know them, you're just dropping. You're just another guy
dropping that deer off. Who knows what's going to happen.
And this is what really drives people to butchering their
own at home because of horror stories that they've had
from from butchers in the past. Now that's don't get
me wrong. There's a ton of really great processors. And
I know a bunch in the hill country in Texas
that are the sausage masters. So there's an advantage of
(12:58):
sending it to somebody like that because they've got an
extra skill.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Do you have one fond of that comes to mind?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I don't want to name names because there are all
there's like five or six that are really good.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, all right, Hank Shaw is our guest. The book
is buck buck moose. I almost said duck duck goose,
which is a different love of your books. All right,
so we get it, we process our meat, and we're ready.
What do you do with the backstrap?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Well, it'ds on aside the animal, So let's just say
it's a regular Texas whitetail. So you know, you've got
two lengths of backstrap somewhere around two to three feet long.
For me, on a regular deer, I'm going to cut
that into lengths. You know, they would call it stripline
in the in the meat industry, so maybe a foot
(13:47):
long or an eight inch twelve inch long, you know,
just a length of backstep. I'm not going to cut
it in the medallions right away, and I'm going to
cook it till it's mediumware that's what I like, and
then I'm going to cut it in the dad. And
there's a couple of reasons for that one. On a
regular deer, you're dealing with a surface to mass ratio
in terms of, you know, how you get a seer
(14:11):
on the on the deer. Sorry, I'm just random rhyming,
but the thing is if you do if you cut
sets the Fitch regular Texas white tail and you cut
it in the medallions, you're gonna have this huge area
that you've seared in a pan on a grill. And
unless you cut that medallion two inches thick, which is
(14:33):
what I like to do, then you're going to have
more area that's going to get hot faster, and it's
much more difficult to cook it to medium rare. And
you also have you know, you have the bark on
the on the outside, which that crispy niceness that's cool,
but you don't end you look at that reveal of
the red steak in the middle, and unless you're a
(14:53):
very good cook, it's a lot easier to get the
doneness that you want if you cook a extrap in
lengths and then cut it rather than cut it into
medallions and then cook it.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Well, what's an interesting point. I guess that would apply
to all sorts of food, and I guess chefs would
know that, but it wasn't something I'd given it any
thought to. What do you do with your ground meat?
I mean, obviously venison chili is very popular here and
one of my favorite things, but.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
What do you do with it? I have a whole
section in the book on it, so it's it's I
love ground meat, and virtually all of my grind will
be with grounded either vacant ends or ground with pork fat.
Some people like d sat on my huge fan, and
then sometimes I'll leave the sat out entirely because if
(15:41):
you make something like a ground meat jerky, or if
you want a very lean spaghetti sauce or chili, you
don't need the extra fat. But in general I prefer
a little bit extra fat, somewhere between ten to sixteen
percent if it's burger grind, and then twenty five to
thirty percent of the sausage grind.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Very interesting. I noticed something. You know, we're talking about
your career progression, and you were where did I see it?
You were the Saint Paul Pioneer Press political reporter, and
they one of them. Yeh, well yes, and then you
got in into doing this. Was it your first book?
You raised the money on a Kickstarter campaign?
Speaker 2 (16:21):
No, it's this one, actually, this is the one. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You raised over one hundred thousand dollars to write this
book off a Kickstarter campaign. That's very impressive.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
I was a little shocked. I thought we'd raised fifty
or sixty. But yeah, the community, the community that supports
Hunter England and the Cook is so strong, and I
don't think I fully realized that strength to the kickstreutter
and every day I'm humbled by that.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
And that's your blog, Hunter Angler, Gardner Cook. It talks about.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Well.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
In reading about you, there's reference to Minnesota's north Woods
and California hunting in California. I am up against a break,
so I'm going to ask you to hold with me
right there, but I want to talk about the places
you've hunted. Coming up next, we're talking to Hank Shaw
and the book is called Buck Buck Moose. His blog
is Hunter, Angler, Gardner Cook. He's also written about gathering, hunting, cooking,
(17:23):
and all of the above. So for those of you ladies,
your man brings home a freezer full of deer meat
and you're trying to figure out what creative things you
can do with it, Hopefully we'll have an answer for you.
Coming up next the Michael Berry Show. Hank Shaw is
our guest. The book is called Buck Buck Moose. He
(17:48):
has made it his passion to talk about what you
should do or what you can do with the meat
you bring home from this season's hunt. Talking about different
things you can do with venison. Uh the ground right now,
and I'll let you take it from there.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
So, you know, depending, I grind lots of different ways,
because I will grind meat, you know, no fat for
some things and a lot of fat for other things.
And so I have that little bags marked, you know,
sausage grind or coarse burger or a fine burger and
that sort of thing. And I just look all over
the world because everybody has ground meat recipes everything from
(18:30):
you know, the Japanese do meatballs, and you know, more
or less everybody does meatballs. If you don't really like meatballs,
I think there's something wrong with you.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I agree with that.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I there's got to be some meatball that that that
you like. And I grew up with, you know, those
big Italian meatballs, and so I make those two and
Swedish meatballs from the seventies and all that kind of stuff,
and so I do a lot of that. I do
a lot of burgers, I do chili, I do ground
(19:00):
meat jerky. There's a recipe in the book for kind
of an old school ground meat jerkey that's right reminds
me of the pemmican that the hold.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
On I'm gonna ask you to hold on the jerky
because I had another question for you on there, and
I don't know, I don't want to get away from
the meatball. So on the meatball and and different things
like that. Is there a particular style of seasoning, as
particular type of seasoning or anything else you're putting in
that any.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Every recipe is different, but the constants are you always
have something other than meats in the grind. So you've
got your ground meat in fat. Sure, but if you
make meatballs just out of that, unless they're very very small,
they're going to be strangely tough and almost chalking. It's
it's a it's a it's a it's an odd sort
(19:46):
of paradox that the best meatballs a lot of have
a lot of bread or other kind of grain in them.
So you always have either bread that's mashed up or
bread crumbs, or cook cook for ice, or something something
that will make the meatball a little bit more fluffy.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Tell me something you do with your venison ground that
people are always surprised with something that other people just
hadn't thought about.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I do. It's funny. One of the reasons why I
love this book is because the entire world eat something
like venison, and so I took recipes from all over
the world that reflect that. And so I was at
the bank the other day and the guy who was
talking with the bank is a guy named Omar, and
Omar's from Lebanon, and so I was talking that I
(20:36):
need to do this transaction for the Cedisin book, and
he starts waxing poetic about hunting gazelles in the eastern
desert of Lemanon. Wow, Wow, that's crazy, are you? I
would never even have thought of that. And so then
we got talking about what he does, and as it happens,
his favorite thing to do with his ground gazelle is
a recipe that's in the book. It's these they call
(20:58):
him kept a kebabs, and it's like spiced ground venison
that's stuck on a skewer, especially as flat skewers you
can buy, and then you grill those and then you
just eat them with like a tomato salad, onions or something,
or you can put in a pita or whatever. Whatever.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Actually had that hank at a at a Lebanese restaurant.
But it wasn't with venison. It was lam It was
either with lamb or beef. I think it was lamb. Yeah,
I think it may have been lamb. Yeah, we don't
eat enough lamb in our food. But anyway, that's I
don't think so either.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
In fact, if you if you're don't if you're not
a hunter, lamb is a pretty close approximation to the
size of the cuts of the typical white tail. The
flavors different.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Right, Well, my wife is from India and she's from
a southern city. She was She's Christian, but she was
raised Hindu and the city is is but the city
is mostly Muslim. So a lot of those dishes influenced
her cooking growing up. And so that's one of the
dishes we eat is actually it's called Beryani and it
is a it's a traditional Indian Muslim dish and it
(22:06):
has to have lamb.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
You just you I love Berrianni.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, you can't. You can't have it without lamb.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
So there I've done it with denison.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
There, well, there you go, there you go, and maybe
maybe we should try Well, we'll see how the season goes.
So to jerky you were, I stopped your jerky conversation,
but I know people are going to be interested in that,
so I wanted to be able to focus on it.
Take it away, all right.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So everybody loves jerky. I mean it's sort of a
you know, meat candy basically, because there's there's no one
who doesn't like some form of jerky. So I do
three kinds basically. I mean, in terms of the structure,
the slavings can all be different, but the most common.
What I'll do is I'll take a hind leg roast,
so some big roast off the hind leg of any animal,
(22:48):
and I will slice it reasonably thin, so I mean
reasonably maybe a quarter inch and eighth of an inch,
depending on how thick I want it against the grain.
And what you do is you then brine it in
a very salty, delicious marinade for several days the refrigerator.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
What's in that marin than, Well, each ferson.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Is different, but one of the ones that I like
a lot is I'll use those little can chipotles and
the dobo and I'll chop them up and I'll mix
that with a little bit of soy sauce and maybe
a little some herbs, and it's just a very The
thing about jerky is you actually want it to be
more flavorful on the get go, then you think you
(23:32):
should make it because the drying process mellows a lot
of flavors. So if you have this marinade with a
bunch of chipotles and a dobo and a whole bunch
of other things that you could barely eat when it's
when it's fresh, it'll actually mellow out really well when
it's dried out. So that's that's another that sort of prochip.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
On making jerky interesting. You ever ate much tabasco?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
In fact, I've been to Avery Island. I'm a big
fanished I asked.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Wow, look at you and the mcwaheneys. Well, the very
first time I ever had backstrap, and I was probably
five years old, it was fried at at a deer
camp and the only thing we had there was tabasco,
and I remember dousing it in tabasco. And anytime I
think of venison for me, and maybe it's more nostalgia
(24:20):
than anything else, but tabasco seems to go with venison
better than any other meat. Have you found that to
be true?
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I don't know. I'm kind of a tabasco you know, addict,
so I put them on almost everything. But you know
what's great about that, though, is because seabasco is so acidic,
there's so much vinegar in it. It adds not only heat,
but it has that brightness to you know, it's effectively
just lean meat. And so that's but that works as
(24:49):
like a wild turkey, It works with dozens, it works
with quail. So I mean, yes, it's a great choice
to put on venison, but I don't know if that
it's any better than on a wow turkey breast.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Okay, fair enough, again, I think it's probably more than
anything else nostalgia. Hank Shaw is our guest. He'll continue
to be our guest. The book is Buck Buck Moose.
We'll talk about beers and wines that taste great. I
don't want to say, paar well with that's a little
fancier than I would normally say, but that tastes great
with what we're cooking and waterfowl, duck and geese. And
(25:25):
he happens to be passionate about eating as well. Coming
up next The Michael Berry Show. The Michael Berry Show,
Hankshaw is our guest His latest book is Buck Buck
Moose Recipes and Techniques for Cooking deer, elk antelope, moose,
and other antlered things, not just cooking them, but eating them.
(25:48):
His blog is Hunter, Angler, Gardener Cook. What do you
find pears well with venison in terms of beers? In one.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I think you know before you even get started on this,
the iron rule of all of this is drink what
you want. I'm not going to be the guy that says,
oh my god, you're drinking this with that. He's just
you know, you're a philistine or something like that. I'm
not that guy. So, but that said, I included a
section in the book because there are some beers and
wines that work really well with different kinds of editions. So,
(26:25):
you know, like anything fried, like fried things in general,
life bubbles. So if you let's say you did country
fried steak and you happen to want a wine today,
you know you could do worse than drink you know,
a sparkling rose or a sparkling red, or hell even champagne.
(26:46):
And in beers, I mean it's the old tradition is
true in this case. Like if you've got fried, cuntry
fried steak or something like that you kind of want,
you know, a shiner or a lone star or something
that's you don't think too hard, you know. In other
cases like if you did you know you mentioned that
your wife is from India. If you did a venison curry,
(27:07):
well then you know there's a reason why India pal
l works well with curries. Is that is that it's spicy,
It's got a lot of a lot of kick to it,
and slaver that can stand up for something that's very
strong with a curry. Do you ever drink any Kingfisher Kingfisher? Sure,
I've drink some lots Kingfisher and that's that. But that
falls into your sort of lone star and shiner kind
(27:28):
of category because it's a it's a it's an easy
drinking logger.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yes, I describe it as a side dish, not a
not a beverage because it feels like I'm I'm eating
it rather than drinking it. I don't know, it's a
little heavy. It's I'm an American session beer drinker when
I'm just drinking at home every day, and so if
I'm drinking that with Indian food, I'm going to have
a nap afterwards. Which is in and of itself a
(27:52):
delightful thing. But anything any other thoughts on what goes
well with dear meat?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, I mean I think in terms of a red wine.
This is your chance to bring up the big bad reds.
You know, you cabernets cooked, the room blends, the big
Italian blends, the Rioja Spanish blends. But I'll tell you
this you speaking of Spanish, I've had some really good
Texas book country temporneos, yes, that go well with edison.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
All right, I have a recommendation for you I want
you to try if you have it. It's a vineyard
outside of Fredericksburg called Becker Yep. And they have a
cab called Iconoclass. It's a twelve dollars bottle of wine
that I discovered several years ago when I went to Specs,
our big you know, spirit wine beer distributor here, retailer here,
(28:40):
and I said, I want a twelve dollars bottle that
I can drink every day. And they went and pulled
the Becker Iconoclast. And I probably have one hundred bottles
in my house right now because I never want to
run out. And I have found for the price point
It is a perfect wine, perfect under bottle.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
You're not a hoarder, are you?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
No, I'm not a hoarder, but you know what I am.
There are certain things the household shouldn't run out of. Right,
Toilet paper and wine are two of them. Before I
let you go, Hank, I would like to talk about another,
another passion of yours, because it is migratory bird season
in Texas. Duck, what's that?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
This teal season, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
You don't get me lying. I've never hunted till I
don't know. I know it's white wings.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
You can said, jep with a guy will who will
put you on until real nice in Bay City?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Is that right? We need to talk? Can you say
his name?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Sure? It's a gouy named Larry Robinson of Coastal Wings.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Coastal Wings.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, he's done a big city, all right, Larry.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Robinson in Bay City. And he's a guide.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Oh yeah, yeah, he's a totally a full on outfitter.
I work with him a lot.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Okay, when you work with him a lot means you
come down and hunt with him.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
We do cooking schools, so we so we'll take clients
and we'll hunt. Will hunt either hogs or deer or waterfowl,
and then I'll do cooking schools. And so they hunt
and they do a cooking school, and then I cook
fancy dinner stoom every night.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
You know what we need to do. I own a
place here called a Redneck Country Club, and we need
to have you come. We need to have you come
and do a book lecture because we have something called
the Redneck Readers, which is our book club. We need
to have you come down do a lecture. We commit
to buy X number of books, and maybe we tie
a hunt and an evening with it. That would be
(30:32):
That would be a blast. I think you would enjoy it.
I know we would anyway. Doug, Doug Goose migratory birds.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Quick bit.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
You know what, let me double back to one thing,
Hank before we get off of it. If you were
giving people advice that on cooking venison, Let's say Mom's
at home, he brings home the deer and she's going
to start cooking it. The thing I took away from
that is people usually overcook venison, and don't would that
be the one rule you'd give.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I think the easiest quickest thing to say is is
that you people mostly either overcook it or undercook it.
So any luxury cut, any nice roast, or any backstrap
of tenderloin cook it medium rare like a steak. Every
other part of the animal cooks slow and low like brisket.
You know you're thinking, these are your crock pot, your
(31:23):
slow cooker areas. And a lot of people will say that,
oh the shoulder's too tough. We'll just keep cooking it.
It'll fall apart.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
You're a slow and low guy. My buddy owns a
place called Good Company Barbecue, which is a real perfer
barbecue here. That's his advice, slow and low. I noticed
on one of your goose articles, cook your goose slow
and low and let the fat render.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Out, yep, especially the legs and the wings and the
rest of the goose. You know, the breastbeant you can
cook hot and fast like a steak. That's true with
any ducks or geese.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
And on the issue of ducks and geese, give me
the one minute rundown on if you've you pointed out
that it people seem to be afraid to cook it,
or they don't have a lot of experience cooking it.
The one minute run down on why you shouldn't be
and what to do.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I think the one minute one rundown is, don't think
of ducks and geese as birds. Think of them just
like venison. So the breast is the backstrap, and everything
else on the bird is just like the shoulder or
the neck. Slow and low on legs and wings, and
hot and fast on the breast meat. And if you
do that, then you are one hundred times better duck
(32:29):
cooked than most people.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Well, and what do you serve with duck? I gotta
admit I'm not a huge duck fan, but maybe I
just haven't.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Had good Well, you need to let me cook you
for cook you duck.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
I've gone to Chinese restaurants, in high end Chinese restaurants
on occasion where they serve duck, and I just I
never I never developed a taste for it. But you
know what, I'm more than willing to try yours.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
What do I cook with duck? I mostly cook it
pretty simple. Yeah, the legs I'll often cook will slow
and low and then shred them, and the tacos like
marba color, and then the breast meat. You know, it's
just it's a great easy Tuesday night steak you know,
you cook a couple of breasts with the skin on,
and christy skin and medium rare meat and salt, pepper,
(33:13):
maybe a little lemon. That's all you neat.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Everybody likes breast hit it absolutely. And that book is
Duck Duck Goose Recipes and Techniques for Cooking Ducks and Geese.
The first book we talked about is Buck Buck Moose.
And then the first one I have more notes on you, Hankshaw.
The first one was called what Hunter Gather?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
What was it called? Cook?
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Hunt Gather Cook, And the blog is Hunter, Angler, Gardener Cook.
I somehow suspect I'm going to be seeing you round
about my parts here sometime soon. We're going to work
something out. Hankshaw. Thank you for being our guest,
Now we're going to talk to Hank Shaw, who his
career progression I must admit, is fascinating, and he somehow
makes a living doing what it appears he really really
loves to do. He's written a series of books, and
I guess they must be successful because he keeps doing it.
The latest of which I guess is Buck Buck Moose.
(00:21):
Recipes and Techniques for Cooking Deer, elk Antelope, Moose, and
Other Antlered Things. Hank, how on earth did you end
up here?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It's been a long and twisted trip. I tell you
that it's hard to say. Actually. I mean, I've been
a forager, you know, picked wild plants and berries, mushrooms
and things. And I've been a fisherman my entire life.
But I didn't pick up hunting until I was an adult.
So it's been an interesting last sixteen seventeen years that
(00:51):
i've been all three.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Well, I want to work backward. Your most recent publication
is Buck Buck Moose, and that's your recipes for cooking things,
for cooking obviously antlered things. As you say, and you
make the point that venison is probably more than any
other meat, the one that people don't cook, right, Why
(01:14):
is that I.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Think it's a tradition. We would probably be the cookedt way
to put it, because there's such a deep family tradition
in cooking and eating the deer or the antelope or
the elk or whatever it is that you bring home,
that there's very strong family recipes like we do it
this way, and often they're rooted in you know, the
(01:37):
bad old days of the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties and
early seventies, when we overcooked everything and we were worried
about food safety and all this sort of stuff. I
can't tell you how many times I've seen people cook
venison backstrap medium well or well done.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
And it just makes the sad and how should it
be cooked?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Just like you want your steak? So medium rare is
my favorite. Some people like it dead rare, some people
like it a solid medium. But as long as it's
you know, you want it tink, you want juices running,
just like you would a ravi and you know, I mean,
people don't make that leap sometimes and it's a little bizarre.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Well, we're not going to be able to replicate the
book in a radio interview, but let's try. You say,
my favorite, my favorite part of the book isn't the recipes, however,
as much as I love them. It is the opening section,
which covers everything you need to know from the moment
that deer's on the ground, skinning, gutting, butchering, processing, food safety,
(02:34):
differences in species, in species and within species depending on
region and diet and age and sex, aging meat. A
discussion of why venison fat isn't all bad wines and
beers that go well with venison. Now you got my attention.
The first one hundred pages are the result of years
of research. All right, So we've just made the kill.
(02:54):
I don't know if you've done any hunting in Texas,
but we've just made the kill of a of a
white tail. Take me from there? What what what do
we start doing from there?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, a lot of times in Texas it's gonna be
fairly warm, uh, so you're gonna need to get the
get the guts out of the animal real quick. Uh.
And then for me, unless you've got to walk in
cooler nearby, you take it out of the skin, because
the biggest thing you need to do is cool that
meat as fast as possible. So that's sort of question
number one. Some people don't do that, and that's that
(03:27):
can lead to you know, that gamy taste that everybody
talks about where oh, you know Benson's gaming. It's it's
usually the case of poor meatcare and not cooling the
meat is kind of your your quickest way to get
that to that bad result. But once you have it
down and you've skinned it, you've got it in a
warm climate, you know, because you know, I've been in
(03:49):
I've been south of Houston in Bay City in November,
and it's not exactly the coolest, coolest place in the world.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
And it's funny, Hank, because I was reading about your
northern Minnesota exploits and now you're out in Cali, and
I was thinking, does this kind of what it's like
to hunt Texas? Go ahead?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yep, it's sweaty, yes. And so I usually had big
marine coolers, you know, like you go tunea fishing with,
and I'll have them in the truck and you know,
I'll put the deer only into pieces that will just
barely fit, so you know, you quarter it. One thing
you never do is do any kind of fine butchery
(04:25):
in the first twenty four hours. And the reason for
that is rigor mortis. So if you cut any animal
while it's still in vigor, the meat is going to
be eternally tough. There's virtually nothing you can do to
make it tender again. And it's a very common mistake.
Butcher is called this shortening. So imagine like your muscles
are a rubber band, and when you're when the animal
(04:49):
is still in rigid, the rubber band is very taut.
So if you cut the ends of that rubber band,
they snap back and they stay that way. It's kind
of like when your sister used to used to say that,
you know, if you made a face at your sister,
she's it's gonna stay that way. It's never gonna go away.
And this is the same thing that happens. So you
you ever now and again you hear stories of somebody
who's had a nice little button buck or a young
(05:12):
doe like, oh man, I mean it was still tough.
I don't know what happened with that. That's usually what happened.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
So you want it quartered and cooled as fast as possible, yep.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
And then you let it sit. You know, you just oh,
by the way, you never you never put the meat
in direct content. You never put the meat in direct
contact with the ice. So I put plastic bags or
blap sacks or something like that and keep the drain
open on the on the coolers so that they stay
cool but they don't get soaked. The worst thing you
(05:42):
can do is soaking venison, because what happens it gets
pale and washed out and you lose a lot of flavor.
But you also invite bacteria in it. So if that
water or that ice rises above forty degrees, then you
have a bacterial breeze ground and nobody wants that. So
that's just sort of a fine point for those people.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Oh sorry, go ahead hang so.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You know, once you have it, you know, sitting and
it's draining and it's cool and it's nice, and it
doesn't have to be super super cool because water water
is your enemy. Only if water is worn and if
you can get again, if you're close to a locker
or if you're you know, you can keep things very cool,
have at it. But I've had need to hang in
(06:28):
under a tree in eighty degree weather with a game
bag on it to keep the flies off, and it's
been fine. So it needs a little bit more durable
than you might think. But you do need to keep
it dry if it's not cold.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I've heard reference to and ten Nugent made the point,
especially with birds, is is kind of dry aging and
letting this meat break down. Do you have any rules there?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
I do, And in fact, it's if you have the
ability to dry age. And I'm talking about dry age.
I'm talking about a minimum of two weeks and three
weeks is better if you if you can do that
for you know, hind legs and the backstrap. And basically
you only want to dry age things that you're going
(07:14):
to cook medium rare, So you don't need to dry
age the whole carcass if you don't want to. I mean,
there's it's not gonna hurt it. But you're going to
cook the heck out of a neck roast or a
shoulder wrist anyway, So it doesn't need to be dry
age to make it tender because the long slow cooking
does that. So what I'll do is I'll dry age
hind legs or whole big link to the backstrap and
(07:36):
then do it that way. And I only really do
that with wall hangers, you know, like a big buck
or a big bull moose or a big you know
bull elf. And the reason is because they're so old.
If you think about it, any neat that you get
in the store is not going to be any older
than two years old. Even good, high quality, well aged,
(08:00):
that cow is not more than two years old.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Hank, I'm going to hold you right there. Hankshaw is
our guest. The book is Buck Buck Moose. He also
wrote Hunt, Gather, Cook, and Duck Duck Goose. We'll talk
more with him coming up the Michael Barry Show. Barry Show.
We're talking to Hank Shaw, and he's the author of
(08:23):
Buck Buck Moose, among other things, on how to cook
the deer you bring home this season, and you were
talking about when you go to the butcher shop, and
that meat is never more than two years old.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Go ahead, right, So you know the thing about an
aged animal. So everybody likes to say that the young,
the young ones are the most tender, and that's true,
it's absolutely true. But the best chasing venison, in my opinion,
is an old wall hanger that's been properly aged. And
here's why. So think about yourself, right, So think about
(08:55):
your current self, and I'll think about yourself when you were, say,
eighteen years old. Aren't you more interesting now than you
were then?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Fair enough? Yeah, I hope so.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
But if you're anything like me, you're a little older,
a little tougher, a little more stream. And so the
thing is, the deer are the same way. So if
you age that and let the enzymes in the meat
break that meat down and concentrate it and tenderize it,
that means going to be far more interesting. It's far
more delicious than say a butt buck. But if you
(09:29):
can't dry age it, that big old bull or that
big old wallhanger deer is going to be as tough
as nails. So it's a catch twenty two.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Sorry, it doesn't make for good radio when I stop
and ponder when someone says something. But I'm stopping him
pondering because you're talking about this. All right. So my
brother processes his own meat and makes a big mess
of his house when he does so. But most people
don't want to do that. They're going to take it
to someone to process it. Do you have some vice
(10:00):
on that?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I actually question that. I did a survey and I
got a thousand responses, and of the thousand responses, only
about one hundred and fifty people who responded said that
they that they regularly take all their animals to the process. Really, yeah,
and what are found among the detections in the southerners
because you guys can kill a lot of deer, and
most of the rest of the country you get one
(10:23):
or two a year, so they're a little bit more
precious to river hunted it.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Now, are you going off of your blog, which is
what hunter Angler Gardner.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Cook it is?
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And you're going off of that blog because you're talking
to insiders. I'm talking about a general population of I mean,
I kid with my brother that he does this and
how much work goes into it. But I'm having trouble
believing that that many people do this themselves. I think
there are those like you that do it. I think
most people like me or lazy and go here. How
much do I owe you I bring.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
This back there? I betually that's fair and it's also
probably regional too. So let's just all right. So if
you're at the processor, biggest thing that you do you
have to do is you have to make a friend
of your processor, because if your butcher is like most butchers,
they're running through dozens of deer a day, so that
butcher is going to be busy, busy, busy, And I
(11:14):
can't tell you how many stories I've heard of, you know, Oh,
I didn't get my tender lings back, or I shot
a button buck and I got an old ruddy buck
back in burger, or they didn't put you know, they
didn't grind beef fats in with my burger, or they
didn't put b side into my burger. So you really
want to be friends with your butcher before hunting season,
because if you want that butcher to pay attention to
(11:36):
your deer, because that's all you know, you work for it,
you deserve the best back.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You know. It's interesting. Ted Nugent made the point that
he's seen in many cases that a butcher will take
you know, five or ten and lay them out and
do piece by piece and just kind of hand it,
you know, you know, organize it over here and making sure,
as you said, that you're getting back what you hope for.
The frustration is it's like dropping off your car picking
(12:03):
it up two days later. I mean, you hope he did.
But it's even worse because you don't know what they
were doing while while you weren't there. So I guess
I guess that's just a trust question more than anything else.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
It really is, it really is. I mean, especially because
let's say you're you're a sticker and you've done everything
right with meat care and the guy who brought the
deer in in front of you was wild. You think
you want your dear back and not that guy's deer
right right, And you know, a good processor, if you
know the guy, you're friends with them, you'll get your
gear back. But if it's just you know, if you
(12:34):
don't know them, you're just dropping. You're just another guy
dropping that deer off. Who knows what's going to happen.
And this is what really drives people to butchering their
own at home because of horror stories that they've had
from from butchers in the past. Now that's don't get
me wrong. There's a ton of really great processors. And
I know a bunch in the hill country in Texas
that are the sausage masters. So there's an advantage of
(12:58):
sending it to somebody like that because they've got an
extra skill.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Do you have one fond of that comes to mind?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I don't want to name names because there are all
there's like five or six that are really good.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, all right, Hank Shaw is our guest. The book
is buck buck moose. I almost said duck duck goose,
which is a different love of your books. All right,
so we get it, we process our meat, and we're ready.
What do you do with the backstrap?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Well, it'ds on aside the animal, So let's just say
it's a regular Texas whitetail. So you know, you've got
two lengths of backstrap somewhere around two to three feet long.
For me, on a regular deer, I'm going to cut
that into lengths. You know, they would call it stripline
in the in the meat industry, so maybe a foot
(13:47):
long or an eight inch twelve inch long, you know,
just a length of backstep. I'm not going to cut
it in the medallions right away, and I'm going to
cook it till it's mediumware that's what I like, and
then I'm going to cut it in the dad. And
there's a couple of reasons for that one. On a
regular deer, you're dealing with a surface to mass ratio
in terms of, you know, how you get a seer
(14:11):
on the on the deer. Sorry, I'm just random rhyming,
but the thing is if you do if you cut
sets the Fitch regular Texas white tail and you cut
it in the medallions, you're gonna have this huge area
that you've seared in a pan on a grill. And
unless you cut that medallion two inches thick, which is
(14:33):
what I like to do, then you're going to have
more area that's going to get hot faster, and it's
much more difficult to cook it to medium rare. And
you also have you know, you have the bark on
the on the outside, which that crispy niceness that's cool,
but you don't end you look at that reveal of
the red steak in the middle, and unless you're a
(14:53):
very good cook, it's a lot easier to get the
doneness that you want if you cook a extrap in
lengths and then cut it rather than cut it into
medallions and then cook it.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Well, what's an interesting point. I guess that would apply
to all sorts of food, and I guess chefs would
know that, but it wasn't something I'd given it any
thought to. What do you do with your ground meat?
I mean, obviously venison chili is very popular here and
one of my favorite things, but.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
What do you do with it? I have a whole
section in the book on it, so it's it's I
love ground meat, and virtually all of my grind will
be with grounded either vacant ends or ground with pork fat.
Some people like d sat on my huge fan, and
then sometimes I'll leave the sat out entirely because if
(15:41):
you make something like a ground meat jerky, or if
you want a very lean spaghetti sauce or chili, you
don't need the extra fat. But in general I prefer
a little bit extra fat, somewhere between ten to sixteen
percent if it's burger grind, and then twenty five to
thirty percent of the sausage grind.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Very interesting. I noticed something. You know, we're talking about
your career progression, and you were where did I see it?
You were the Saint Paul Pioneer Press political reporter, and
they one of them. Yeh, well yes, and then you
got in into doing this. Was it your first book?
You raised the money on a Kickstarter campaign?
Speaker 2 (16:21):
No, it's this one, actually, this is the one. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You raised over one hundred thousand dollars to write this
book off a Kickstarter campaign. That's very impressive.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
I was a little shocked. I thought we'd raised fifty
or sixty. But yeah, the community, the community that supports
Hunter England and the Cook is so strong, and I
don't think I fully realized that strength to the kickstreutter
and every day I'm humbled by that.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
And that's your blog, Hunter Angler, Gardner Cook. It talks about.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Well.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
In reading about you, there's reference to Minnesota's north Woods
and California hunting in California. I am up against a break,
so I'm going to ask you to hold with me
right there, but I want to talk about the places
you've hunted. Coming up next, we're talking to Hank Shaw
and the book is called Buck Buck Moose. His blog
is Hunter, Angler, Gardner Cook. He's also written about gathering, hunting, cooking,
(17:23):
and all of the above. So for those of you ladies,
your man brings home a freezer full of deer meat
and you're trying to figure out what creative things you
can do with it, Hopefully we'll have an answer for you.
Coming up next the Michael Berry Show. Hank Shaw is
our guest. The book is called Buck Buck Moose. He
(17:48):
has made it his passion to talk about what you
should do or what you can do with the meat
you bring home from this season's hunt. Talking about different
things you can do with venison. Uh the ground right now,
and I'll let you take it from there.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
So, you know, depending, I grind lots of different ways,
because I will grind meat, you know, no fat for
some things and a lot of fat for other things.
And so I have that little bags marked, you know,
sausage grind or coarse burger or a fine burger and
that sort of thing. And I just look all over
the world because everybody has ground meat recipes everything from
(18:30):
you know, the Japanese do meatballs, and you know, more
or less everybody does meatballs. If you don't really like meatballs,
I think there's something wrong with you.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I agree with that.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I there's got to be some meatball that that that
you like. And I grew up with, you know, those
big Italian meatballs, and so I make those two and
Swedish meatballs from the seventies and all that kind of stuff,
and so I do a lot of that. I do
a lot of burgers, I do chili, I do ground
(19:00):
meat jerky. There's a recipe in the book for kind
of an old school ground meat jerkey that's right reminds
me of the pemmican that the hold.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
On I'm gonna ask you to hold on the jerky
because I had another question for you on there, and
I don't know, I don't want to get away from
the meatball. So on the meatball and and different things
like that. Is there a particular style of seasoning, as
particular type of seasoning or anything else you're putting in
that any.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Every recipe is different, but the constants are you always
have something other than meats in the grind. So you've
got your ground meat in fat. Sure, but if you
make meatballs just out of that, unless they're very very small,
they're going to be strangely tough and almost chalking. It's
it's a it's a it's a it's an odd sort
(19:46):
of paradox that the best meatballs a lot of have
a lot of bread or other kind of grain in them.
So you always have either bread that's mashed up or
bread crumbs, or cook cook for ice, or something something
that will make the meatball a little bit more fluffy.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Tell me something you do with your venison ground that
people are always surprised with something that other people just
hadn't thought about.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I do. It's funny. One of the reasons why I
love this book is because the entire world eat something
like venison, and so I took recipes from all over
the world that reflect that. And so I was at
the bank the other day and the guy who was
talking with the bank is a guy named Omar, and
Omar's from Lebanon, and so I was talking that I
(20:36):
need to do this transaction for the Cedisin book, and
he starts waxing poetic about hunting gazelles in the eastern
desert of Lemanon. Wow, Wow, that's crazy, are you? I
would never even have thought of that. And so then
we got talking about what he does, and as it happens,
his favorite thing to do with his ground gazelle is
a recipe that's in the book. It's these they call
(20:58):
him kept a kebabs, and it's like spiced ground venison
that's stuck on a skewer, especially as flat skewers you
can buy, and then you grill those and then you
just eat them with like a tomato salad, onions or something,
or you can put in a pita or whatever. Whatever.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Actually had that hank at a at a Lebanese restaurant.
But it wasn't with venison. It was lam It was
either with lamb or beef. I think it was lamb. Yeah,
I think it may have been lamb. Yeah, we don't
eat enough lamb in our food. But anyway, that's I
don't think so either.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
In fact, if you if you're don't if you're not
a hunter, lamb is a pretty close approximation to the
size of the cuts of the typical white tail. The
flavors different.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Right, Well, my wife is from India and she's from
a southern city. She was She's Christian, but she was
raised Hindu and the city is is but the city
is mostly Muslim. So a lot of those dishes influenced
her cooking growing up. And so that's one of the
dishes we eat is actually it's called Beryani and it
is a it's a traditional Indian Muslim dish and it
(22:06):
has to have lamb.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
You just you I love Berrianni.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, you can't. You can't have it without lamb.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
So there I've done it with denison.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
There, well, there you go, there you go, and maybe
maybe we should try Well, we'll see how the season goes.
So to jerky you were, I stopped your jerky conversation,
but I know people are going to be interested in that,
so I wanted to be able to focus on it.
Take it away, all right.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So everybody loves jerky. I mean it's sort of a
you know, meat candy basically, because there's there's no one
who doesn't like some form of jerky. So I do
three kinds basically. I mean, in terms of the structure,
the slavings can all be different, but the most common.
What I'll do is I'll take a hind leg roast,
so some big roast off the hind leg of any animal,
(22:48):
and I will slice it reasonably thin, so I mean
reasonably maybe a quarter inch and eighth of an inch,
depending on how thick I want it against the grain.
And what you do is you then brine it in
a very salty, delicious marinade for several days the refrigerator.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
What's in that marin than, Well, each ferson.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Is different, but one of the ones that I like
a lot is I'll use those little can chipotles and
the dobo and I'll chop them up and I'll mix
that with a little bit of soy sauce and maybe
a little some herbs, and it's just a very The
thing about jerky is you actually want it to be
more flavorful on the get go, then you think you
(23:32):
should make it because the drying process mellows a lot
of flavors. So if you have this marinade with a
bunch of chipotles and a dobo and a whole bunch
of other things that you could barely eat when it's
when it's fresh, it'll actually mellow out really well when
it's dried out. So that's that's another that sort of prochip.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
On making jerky interesting. You ever ate much tabasco?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
In fact, I've been to Avery Island. I'm a big
fanished I asked.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Wow, look at you and the mcwaheneys. Well, the very
first time I ever had backstrap, and I was probably
five years old, it was fried at at a deer
camp and the only thing we had there was tabasco,
and I remember dousing it in tabasco. And anytime I
think of venison for me, and maybe it's more nostalgia
(24:20):
than anything else, but tabasco seems to go with venison
better than any other meat. Have you found that to
be true?
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I don't know. I'm kind of a tabasco you know, addict,
so I put them on almost everything. But you know
what's great about that, though, is because seabasco is so acidic,
there's so much vinegar in it. It adds not only heat,
but it has that brightness to you know, it's effectively
just lean meat. And so that's but that works as
(24:49):
like a wild turkey, It works with dozens, it works
with quail. So I mean, yes, it's a great choice
to put on venison, but I don't know if that
it's any better than on a wow turkey breast.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Okay, fair enough, again, I think it's probably more than
anything else nostalgia. Hank Shaw is our guest. He'll continue
to be our guest. The book is Buck Buck Moose.
We'll talk about beers and wines that taste great. I
don't want to say, paar well with that's a little
fancier than I would normally say, but that tastes great
with what we're cooking and waterfowl, duck and geese. And
(25:25):
he happens to be passionate about eating as well. Coming
up next The Michael Berry Show. The Michael Berry Show,
Hankshaw is our guest His latest book is Buck Buck
Moose Recipes and Techniques for Cooking deer, elk antelope, moose,
and other antlered things, not just cooking them, but eating them.
(25:48):
His blog is Hunter, Angler, Gardener Cook. What do you
find pears well with venison in terms of beers? In one.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I think you know before you even get started on this,
the iron rule of all of this is drink what
you want. I'm not going to be the guy that says,
oh my god, you're drinking this with that. He's just
you know, you're a philistine or something like that. I'm
not that guy. So, but that said, I included a
section in the book because there are some beers and
wines that work really well with different kinds of editions. So,
(26:25):
you know, like anything fried, like fried things in general,
life bubbles. So if you let's say you did country
fried steak and you happen to want a wine today,
you know you could do worse than drink you know,
a sparkling rose or a sparkling red, or hell even champagne.
(26:46):
And in beers, I mean it's the old tradition is
true in this case. Like if you've got fried, cuntry
fried steak or something like that you kind of want,
you know, a shiner or a lone star or something
that's you don't think too hard, you know. In other
cases like if you did you know you mentioned that
your wife is from India. If you did a venison curry,
(27:07):
well then you know there's a reason why India pal
l works well with curries. Is that is that it's spicy,
It's got a lot of a lot of kick to it,
and slaver that can stand up for something that's very
strong with a curry. Do you ever drink any Kingfisher Kingfisher? Sure,
I've drink some lots Kingfisher and that's that. But that
falls into your sort of lone star and shiner kind
(27:28):
of category because it's a it's a it's an easy
drinking logger.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yes, I describe it as a side dish, not a
not a beverage because it feels like I'm I'm eating
it rather than drinking it. I don't know, it's a
little heavy. It's I'm an American session beer drinker when
I'm just drinking at home every day, and so if
I'm drinking that with Indian food, I'm going to have
a nap afterwards. Which is in and of itself a
(27:52):
delightful thing. But anything any other thoughts on what goes
well with dear meat?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, I mean I think in terms of a red wine.
This is your chance to bring up the big bad reds.
You know, you cabernets cooked, the room blends, the big
Italian blends, the Rioja Spanish blends. But I'll tell you
this you speaking of Spanish, I've had some really good
Texas book country temporneos, yes, that go well with edison.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
All right, I have a recommendation for you I want
you to try if you have it. It's a vineyard
outside of Fredericksburg called Becker Yep. And they have a
cab called Iconoclass. It's a twelve dollars bottle of wine
that I discovered several years ago when I went to Specs,
our big you know, spirit wine beer distributor here, retailer here,
(28:40):
and I said, I want a twelve dollars bottle that
I can drink every day. And they went and pulled
the Becker Iconoclast. And I probably have one hundred bottles
in my house right now because I never want to
run out. And I have found for the price point
It is a perfect wine, perfect under bottle.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
You're not a hoarder, are you?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
No, I'm not a hoarder, but you know what I am.
There are certain things the household shouldn't run out of. Right,
Toilet paper and wine are two of them. Before I
let you go, Hank, I would like to talk about another,
another passion of yours, because it is migratory bird season
in Texas. Duck, what's that?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
This teal season, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
You don't get me lying. I've never hunted till I
don't know. I know it's white wings.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
You can said, jep with a guy will who will
put you on until real nice in Bay City?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Is that right? We need to talk? Can you say
his name?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Sure? It's a gouy named Larry Robinson of Coastal Wings.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Coastal Wings.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, he's done a big city, all right, Larry.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Robinson in Bay City. And he's a guide.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Oh yeah, yeah, he's a totally a full on outfitter.
I work with him a lot.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Okay, when you work with him a lot means you
come down and hunt with him.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
We do cooking schools, so we so we'll take clients
and we'll hunt. Will hunt either hogs or deer or waterfowl,
and then I'll do cooking schools. And so they hunt
and they do a cooking school, and then I cook
fancy dinner stoom every night.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
You know what we need to do. I own a
place here called a Redneck Country Club, and we need
to have you come. We need to have you come
and do a book lecture because we have something called
the Redneck Readers, which is our book club. We need
to have you come down do a lecture. We commit
to buy X number of books, and maybe we tie
a hunt and an evening with it. That would be
(30:32):
That would be a blast. I think you would enjoy it.
I know we would anyway. Doug, Doug Goose migratory birds.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Quick bit.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
You know what, let me double back to one thing,
Hank before we get off of it. If you were
giving people advice that on cooking venison, Let's say Mom's
at home, he brings home the deer and she's going
to start cooking it. The thing I took away from
that is people usually overcook venison, and don't would that
be the one rule you'd give.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I think the easiest quickest thing to say is is
that you people mostly either overcook it or undercook it.
So any luxury cut, any nice roast, or any backstrap
of tenderloin cook it medium rare like a steak. Every
other part of the animal cooks slow and low like brisket.
You know you're thinking, these are your crock pot, your
(31:23):
slow cooker areas. And a lot of people will say that,
oh the shoulder's too tough. We'll just keep cooking it.
It'll fall apart.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
You're a slow and low guy. My buddy owns a
place called Good Company Barbecue, which is a real perfer
barbecue here. That's his advice, slow and low. I noticed
on one of your goose articles, cook your goose slow
and low and let the fat render.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Out, yep, especially the legs and the wings and the
rest of the goose. You know, the breastbeant you can
cook hot and fast like a steak. That's true with
any ducks or geese.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
And on the issue of ducks and geese, give me
the one minute rundown on if you've you pointed out
that it people seem to be afraid to cook it,
or they don't have a lot of experience cooking it.
The one minute run down on why you shouldn't be
and what to do.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I think the one minute one rundown is, don't think
of ducks and geese as birds. Think of them just
like venison. So the breast is the backstrap, and everything
else on the bird is just like the shoulder or
the neck. Slow and low on legs and wings, and
hot and fast on the breast meat. And if you
do that, then you are one hundred times better duck
(32:29):
cooked than most people.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Well, and what do you serve with duck? I gotta
admit I'm not a huge duck fan, but maybe I
just haven't.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Had good Well, you need to let me cook you
for cook you duck.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
I've gone to Chinese restaurants, in high end Chinese restaurants
on occasion where they serve duck, and I just I
never I never developed a taste for it. But you
know what, I'm more than willing to try yours.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
What do I cook with duck? I mostly cook it
pretty simple. Yeah, the legs I'll often cook will slow
and low and then shred them, and the tacos like
marba color, and then the breast meat. You know, it's
just it's a great easy Tuesday night steak you know,
you cook a couple of breasts with the skin on,
and christy skin and medium rare meat and salt, pepper,
(33:13):
maybe a little lemon. That's all you neat.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Everybody likes breast hit it absolutely. And that book is
Duck Duck Goose Recipes and Techniques for Cooking Ducks and Geese.
The first book we talked about is Buck Buck Moose.
And then the first one I have more notes on you, Hankshaw.
The first one was called what Hunter Gather?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
What was it called? Cook?
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Hunt Gather Cook, And the blog is Hunter, Angler, Gardener Cook.
I somehow suspect I'm going to be seeing you round
about my parts here sometime soon. We're going to work
something out. Hankshaw. Thank you for being our guest,
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