Today I have a very special treat, I guest blogger! Christine Mais is a super busy mom whose husband is an avid hunter. This means that Christine has to get extra creative when Rodney brings home something less than traditional. This also means she gets to create some amazing meals using these non-traditional (well actually they are the most traditional proteins since we were hunters before farmers...) protein sources. So a bit back Christine contacted me and asked if I'd like a guest blogger and I said, "YES!" especially because she was using hunted meat rather than something bought at the grocery store. When you use meat you've hunted rather than bought at the store, you have to contend with some different hurdles than with store bought. These animals have not been fed a corn and soy based diet so they have a different flavor. Often because the animal is older than what you'd find at the store (8 weeks for chicken, 14-16 weeks for turkeys) so they may be a bit tough. They are also often leaner because of their diet which can contribute to toughness, but you can always get around this, just like Christine did in this recipe.
My dad brought a turkey home one year and it was the last year because he didn't want to ever pluck a turkey again. From what I understand if you're just going for the meat you can skin the bird just like you would a fish, or other game and avoid the whole plucking thing all together. I'm also pretty sure my mother's refusal to cook anything he brought in also contributed to him not doing it again. Luckily I learned how to cook early on and became the queen of the venison roast in no time flat. There was something about Mom not wanting to cook Bambi, I never got (it was YUMMY!) so Dad was happy to let me do all the cooking when he brought a deer home.
Christine was kind enough to provide me with her backstory, recipe, pictures, and a final verdict, so I am going to just paste what she sent below so you can get an idea of what an amazing person and chef she is! Enjoy and feel free to giggle along, she's got a great sense of humor to top it all off. Also, if you are not married to a hunter, you can find Turkey breasts at the store and use them.
Wild Turkey Strips
by Christine Mais
Backstory:
I am an everyday wife and mom with a full time job, and
little extra free time. So, even though
I serve balanced meals, cooking is often quick and minimal in my house. To complicate things, my husband enjoys
hunting. Great, but, like I mentioned
before, I am not much of a cook. So… I
wind up with a bunch of game in the freezer that I have no idea how to
use! I am hoping to be able to share a
couple of successful cooking attempts with Jennifer and her friends. Hmmm… I will probably pass along a few what
not to do’s as well, purely based on my past experience ; ) Enjoy!
Marinated and Fried
Turkey Strips
What I had to use:
·
Wild Turkey Breasts
What else I had that made it taste good:
·
White wine (1/2 cup)
·
Vinegar (1/2 cup)
·
Italian dressing (1/2 cup)
·
Lemon juice (add to taste)
·
Eggs (2 large)
·
Flour
·
Bread crumbs
·
Seasoning as desired
·
Vegetable oil
Steps:
1.
Tenderize the meat!!! Wild turkey can be very tough depending upon
how old the bird is. I skipped this last
year and lived to regret it… see I told you I would have a what not to do! A meat tenderizer is great for this step. But
if you don’t have one on hand, use a roller over the meat in a plastic
bag. The plastic bag will prevent a
mess.
2.
Cut the breast meat in strips cross grain. (I had more
than what is pictured here.)
3.
Prepare the marinade. Mix together the white wine, the vinegar, the
Italian dressing and lemon juice in a bowl.
Mix well. If this is not enough
marinade, add more accordingly.
4.
Place the strips in the marinade. Let sit overnight or as long as you can. Marinating from morning through the day is
enough for flavor at dinner.
5.
Break the eggs for coating the strips.
6.
Mix flour and bread crumbs and seasoning (I used
savory) for coating the strips.
7.
Set up the breading line.
8.
Put oil in the frying pan and pre-heat.
9.
Coat each strip with egg, then the flour and
bread crumb mix, and then into the frying pan.
10.
Flip to fry each side. Remove when the chicken is cooked all the way
through.
My kids loved this!
Okay, so no one actually stood up and sung my praises after dinner, but
I attribute that to completely full mouths, and complaints only when there were
not any left over. But perhaps the
biggest non-verbal complement was from my youngest. After eating four strips,
he asked for more. I placed a small to
medium size strip on his plate. He
looked at what I gave him; decided that wasn’t good enough, and stood up to get
the biggest remaining strip on the serving plate. Love that kid!
I hope you enjoy it too!
------
Wasn't this great?!?
Matt and I are going deer hunting this year and I'm hoping I'll be able to share some more game recipes with you all later this year. If not, I'll be happy to rely on Christine and her innovative game recipes!
Happy eating!
No comments:
Post a Comment