Finished-up a number of creations in the kitchen yesterday, Duck Gumbo, Kentucky Burgoo and even a wonderful spicy duck chilli (yet another great Hank Shaw recipe!). We did have some mild concerns about the age of several of the ingredients being considered (some frozen chicken stock had gone bad, along with some older venison chorizo) but after trimming off a few small freezer-burned sections most all of the waterfowl and gamebirds used were just fine. What was a bit of a surprise was the number of spruce grouse we had to deal with. Instead of 2 or 3 birds I found more like 5 or 6 (I kill the hens by accident while hunting ruffed grouse and they slowly accumulate in our freezer).

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

Our own Brent here has mentioned several times (in previous posts) that he thinks that they are better tablefare than their reputation would have you believe. Since several of them were 4-5 years old (& after brining them for several hours) I took some breast tenders and fried them up in a pan to confirm their usefulness. These are a darker meat bird but...they were surprisingly mild and tender. Since we didn't have any rabbit or squirrel this year, they were included quite sucessfully in the burgoo (and even the gumbo).

Our freezer(s) are current and tidy now, and full of a wonderful selection of game-based options. If winter ever returns here (60 degrees yet again today) we are more than ready for it now.

Last edited by Lloyd3; 02/09/26 05:46 PM.