Cooking with game

WHO IS BERT BUITENHUIS?

I grew up in the woods. I started supposedly hunting the animals with a toy gun. ‘In my own way, I was into hunting at a young age. It’s really a passion for me. Later in life, I started sneaking up on game with my camera to take pictures of the animals and did clay pigeon shooting. At the clay pigeon shooting club, more and more people said, ‘You’re really someone who should go hunting’ And in 2002 I started doing hunting training. At that time I was working at a hunting store and was a shooting instructor for pellet and hail rifle. I started providing information for the KNJV, the Veluwe Region and the Reewild Association so my network slowly expanded. Getting into hunting was really difficult, but slowly I succeeded.

Also, I have done every course and or training related to hunting and hygiene. The knowledge gained in practice and in theory is very important to me, not only out of passion, interest but also to responsibility to nature in general.

While hunting, I get totally absorbed in nature, and I feel really privileged to experience so many special things in nature. I encounter animals that normally rarely show themselves, and because I sit very still, or stalk it, I often get very close. From the smallest ant to the largest deer and everything in between, you see so many wonderful interactions on each other and every season has its peculiarities. It’s really enjoyable.

For me, it really is a primal instinct where I am completely in my element.

WHO IS THE HUNTING COOK?

Since I have been hunting I love doing everything myself, slaughtering and cooking with the beautiful meat. So I got more and more demand from acquaintances and friends if I also sell game meat and so I started selling portioned game. Cooking with game is also a great passion of mine and so I also cooked for friends and acquaintances, and so the question came if I could also provide dinner on location, and of course I did. And cooking on location was an opportunity to promote hunting and eating game. I noticed that a lot of people associated eating game with fall and winter, as a big game hunter, ungulates, I hunted all year round so I started promoting eating game all year round. The demand for venison grew tremendously and so did the demand if I could show how to prepare venison from the skin to your plate. And so I started giving workshops with roe, wild boar, fallow deer and red deer. People from all over the country and Belgium wanted to come to my venison workshops, the dinners at my Hunting Lodge and BBQ in my BBQ garden and on location grew and the workshops at my place and on location became more and more requested. And then, in 2015 I made the decision to start and expand The Hunting Cook full time. Every year I get to host many Belgians for my dinners, BBQs and workshops. I also find it very special that I am asked for culinary and hunting magazines as an editor to write about hunting and cooking with game. I also love coming up with recipes from parts that you wouldn’t expect to be so tasty as a dish, such as confit shanks, neck, slow roasts and from the catch of wild boar, brains, tongue, testicles, maagnet.

I strive for a very high quality but also for approachability, openness and transparency.

My goal is to get as many people as possible excited about eating game year-round, that it is readily available and easy to prepare. I love experiencing that hunting and eating game is becoming more and more accepted among the general public. Also by talking to vegetarians, who understand the way game is managed and hunted, there is a lot of understanding towards us hunters. Vegetarians in general are against animal suffering and an animal industry, which is not the case with the game we shoot. You often hear that they couldn’t do it themselves, but that’s okay, that’s what we’re there for, and that’s how we get more and more respect, appreciation and more people who keep eating game meat. It is of course also the most honest, purest meat there is the game has lived in nature as it suits it (in its cultural environment) and eaten what it naturally wants to eat.

I now specialize in big game; roe and wild boar. However, for my recipes I also like to work with small game such as duck, pigeon and rabbit. The development of the BBQ trend also offers a whole new range of preparation methods.

Culinary and Pastoral Greetings from Bert Buitenuis

The Hunting Cook

www.dejagendekok.nl

Cooking for the Hunter

Through a valued reader of Hunting, from the Netherlands, we received the attached manuals for the common game species:

Thanks to Paul Bouwmeester for publication rights.

Goose Recipes

A goose on my plate? No, thank you. Geese are tough, you can hardly get any meat out of them, you have to bring in specialized smokers, only to be eaten candied (i.e. after prolonged cooking), …

Yet nothing could be further from the truth, and this new booklet from inagro proves it.
Goose meat tastes delicious and can be processed in many different ways: goose pâté, smoked goose breast, confit , hamburgers, roasts, … The food culture of goose meat has been somewhat lost in our regions. High time for a refresher.

A second section Goose Recipes provides a number of preparations for goose burgers, pâté or cassoulet, as well as preservation techniques such as pickling or smoking.

Duck with Whiskey

Needs

• A duck of about 1.5 to 2kg.
• Two large bottles of Scotch whisky
• Bacon strips
• Olive Oil
• Pepper and salt

Methodology

Lard the duck and rub the inside with salt and pepper.
Preheat the oven for 10 minutes at 180 degrees.
Half fill a long drink glass with whiskey.
Drink the whiskey while preheating the oven.

Place the duck on an ovenproof dish and pour a second glass of whiskey.
Finish the second glass of whiskey and place the duck in the oven.
After 20 minutes, turn the oven to 200 degrees and vubbe 2 glasses with whiskey.

Finish the glavs and pick up the shells from the first glay.
Pour in another half a glav and opdlinke.
After half an hour, open the oven to shekkn the duck.

Pour the Blandwondesjalf into the badkarnel and put it on the top of the left hand.
Pour in two more glasses of whiskey.
Put the ove on after the first glav is empty and grab the saucer.
Put the Blandwondesjalf on the inside of the straight hand.

Duck oprape.

Pick up the duck again and wipe off the duck’s bwandwondesalf with a towel.
Degrease the hand with visky and pick up the dube zalv again.
Pick up the broken glazz and put the duck back in the hove.

De heend opedoen en dove eers opedoen.
De tweede fjes biski opedoen en ovejeindzette.
Opstjaan van de floer en et fat spek ondre kas vege.
Nogis opstjaan van de floer en tochma blijve zitte.

Putting the vjes on the gjond.
Uide vjes djinke wande glave sjijn ob or kabot.
Denove afsjette, de oge sljuite en omvalle.

RECEPT: Wild boar sausage rolls with curry

This is really a recipe what is called comfort food in English.

Cozy cozy savory snack between meals, also super fun to make with kids

NUMBER OF SAUSAGES: 10

TOTAL COOKING TIME : 35 MIN

SUPPLIES IN THE KITCHEN:

1. Mincer (4/5 mm)
2. Oven
3. griddle
4. Baking paper
5. Scale
6. Tassel
7. Fork
8. bowl

INGREDIENTS 4 PERSONS:

• 800 grams of minced meat
• Mincing mill (throughput 4/5 mm)
• Pack of puff pastry (square around 12 cm)
• 4 tbsp seasoned breadcrumbs
• 4 tbsp curry powder
• 5 tbsp. fine white pepper
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2 eggs

PREPARATION:

1. Remove the baking sheet from the oven, and place the baking paper on top
2. Heat the oven to 220 degrees C.
3. Run the minced meat through the mill
4. Mix this with the spices, and knead well until you get a nice dough
5. Place the puff pastry on the baking sheet
6. Place 80 grams of minced meat, in a roll, next to the center of the puff pastry
7. Fold closed and press the edges together with a fork
8. Beat the eggs and brush the egg over the puff pastry
9. Place in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes at 220 degrees C.

TIP: check after 15 minutes to see if they are deep golden brown because then they are done

10. Remove from oven and let rest for 5 minutes.

TIP:

You can also halve them before putting them in the oven.

Of course, you can also prepare this with other meat but you will have to add some fat.

Eg pork belly, or if you have fat from wild boar or fallow game