Cooking wild geese and ducks

Fox

Fox

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How do you guys cook your ducks and geese?
I did a few stir-frys last year with the breast meat of the geese and tried a stew with the legs but had bad results.
They are quite tough, what methods do you guys use to get a very tasty tender bird in the end?
 
Slice carrots, potatos and onion into roaster pan. Layer breasts into the pan and cover with more sliced veggies. Add two cups chicken stock and roast in a slow oven for five hours. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Toss out the meat and veggies and eat the roaster pan.
 
Aside from cleaning and doing a quick gutting in the field to cool down the birds, I like to remove all meat and if doing stir fry, make a teriyaki marinade and let it sit overnight in the fridge before cooking. Otherwise, I prefer to either roast or BBQ.
 
Myself I like an over night marinade in something like CCranberry juice, wine etc and just BBQ with BBQ sauce, sometimes a little maple syrup about 1 minute before you take it off the grill.

I have tasted some incredible jerky made from goose breast.

I do like an occasional roasted bird but honestly it is TOO MUCH WORK!

We had bbq'd duck a few days ago, fresh from the marsh to the bbq. excellent!

DO NOT OVER COOK, slightly pink is perfect.
 
Take a few of them, plucked and gutted ... thro in roaster pan with sliced onions, sliced carrots, sliced celery, potato's, soup mix(either chicken stock or veggie) and some times stewing tomatoes ... bast every 10 minutes ... cook til little pink left it them ... pull out ... set aside, make dumplings ... chow down ... whole bird per person ... ;) :D

Otokiak
Rankin Inlet, NU
CANADA
 
The only way I've tried has been plain (yuck) and with bacon inside and on top. The bacon taste makes its way into the bird meat. It was the first recipe my mom tried and it is now the only one we do.

Oh yeah, the first time that recipe was used we also had chopped apples inside. We didn't really care for it so we just pared it down to only bacon.
 
Roast, stewed, braised, BBQ'd ... I find "stir-frying" to be the least desireable method of any, but useful for birds like goldeneye(whistlers) & bufflehead ...

Wildfowl generally have very little fat, so one has to compensate with cooking methods. Uncured / unsalted side pork works well for larding/basting purposes.

Particularly fine birds ... like grain-fed puddlers, Canadas, Whitefronts (Specklebellies) Cans & Reds for example, deserve to be roasted in a very hot oven ... and enjoyed rare to medium rare :D Not a fan of well-done anything !

There are literally dozens, if not hundreds of Wild Game Cookbooks
out there ... most are well worth the investment.
 
If I am stuffing the bird. Lots of onion, apples and apple sauce or white wine.
If you hole of and save the breasts til you have a turkey, stuff the breasts into the turkey, (you can fit quite a few in there... Delicious.

Just the breasts.... I make little cutlets, dip them in milk, roll in half cup a flower with a tablespoon of chicken base (oxo) added and some celery salt.
Put in a hot,(not smoking hot) skillet and cook with olive oil, ..

Don't cook the #### out of it, and don't be pressin on it like a burger.
They come out pretty good.

Mrs Dash or any combined seasonings are all good mixed with he flour I find.

Might get a pic or 2 up tomorrow of them cooked.
 
Goose legs that you will aways like.

Take the goose legs (4 of them), sprinkle with salt and put in a ziploc ing the fridge overnight.
I cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped carrot
1 large chopped onion
Bay leaf
Whole pepper
1 smashed garlic clove

Put all that into the pot and cover with chicken stock, beef stock, beer or any combination of the 3. (Half water and half beer works too)

Preheat oven to 200 and put the pot in and cover it and walk away for 6- 8 hours (does well overnight). Carefully take out the legs and put them on a baking sheet brush with butter and sprinkle with your favorite seasoning slt and then slap them under the broiler until they crisp up a bit.

Breasts: try slicing into strips, pound them flat, salt pepper and sear them in super hot pan for a few seconds a side. They should be pinkish red in the center.
 
Mostly slow roasted whole, but with the volume of snow geese last year, my wife has been thawing some of the plucked birds out and breasting them, and broiling or quick frying the breast for one meal and pressure cooking the rest and them using the meat of the rest for soup or salmi.
 
There is hardly any meat on the legs of ducks and geese so it's not really worth the effort to gut and pluck, unless every bite matters to you, so I just field dress them and take the breasts. Here's what you do with them:

Take one of those larger Ziploc bags, put in some bread crumbs, salt, pepper, garlic powder and a touch of paprika, seal the bag well, shake a few time, then toss the f*cking thing in the garbage. Losing the spices with it is a bit of annoyance but in the end it it worth it!
 
Xman said:
There is hardly any meat on the legs of ducks and geese so it's not really worth the effort to gut and pluck, unless every bite matters to you
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Not true, especially with the legs of geese. Two goose legs is more than a meal for an adult. Plus the legs and wings of geese, and the legs of ducks are some o f the best meat on the bird. It doens't take more than a few minutes to skin out the leg of geese while you are breasting them..
 
Thanks guys, keep em coming, they were well done last year because I was not sure if there were any problems cooking these wild birds to medium rare.
I hope to get out this week, so I will give it a go if we get lucky.
 
sjemac said:
Not true, especially with the legs of geese. Two goose legs is more than a meal for an adult. Plus the legs and wings of geese, and the legs of ducks are some o f the best meat on the bird. It doens't take more than a few minutes to skin out the leg of geese while you are breasting them..
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I completely agree. The legs of geese especially have a ton of meat and are very tender. BBQ'ing the legs is my favorite.
 
Yes its legal, whenever you transport your game all you need is the two breasts and one wing attached. Thats in our regs aswell as americans who come up to the prairies and go back with them. On ducks I agree that there's not enough meat to take them off if you're not roasting them but on geese theres plenty there.
 
Crazy_Farmer said:
Yes its legal, whenever you transport your game all you need is the two breasts and one wing attached. Thats in our regs aswell as americans who come up to the prairies and go back with them. On ducks I agree that there's not enough meat to take them off if you're not roasting them but on geese theres plenty there.
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Careful. Here in Alberta, people have been charged for wanton waste by merely breasting grouse and leaving the legs. Provincial regs can be more strenuous than federal ones.
 
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