The Hunt – Transcript

– Announcer: This week on Wisconsin Foodie:

[casual music]

– So, we have a spot today that we think is gonna be pretty good for grouse. We’re hoping to find some woodcock too or timberdoodle. Basically, all we have to do is put the collars on the dogs, they get a beeper collar. And then, when they go on point, there’s a hawk scream.

– Could you replicate what we might here as far as the hawk scream?

[hawk screaming]

[laughing]

He’s right between us right now.

[beeping]

[gun shooting]

[casual music]

Did you guys get the birds cleaned?

– We did, they cleaned up really nicely.

– Luke: What I want to do today is kind of replicate my grandmother’s fried chicken recipe.

– Emily: That sounds good.

– Luke: Here’s to a day in the woods. Thanks a lot friends.

– Yeah, it was a great day.

– Jacob: Thanks for cooking.

– That looks good.

[casual music]

– Announcer: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

– Announcer: Introducing Organic Valley Ultra. Milk with more protein, half the sugar, and no toxic pesticides.

– Let’s be honest, none of that healthy stuff really matters unless our kids will drink it.

[casual dramatic music]

[cow mooing]

– Yeah, I would drink that.

– You hear that? She would drink that.

[cheering]

– Parents are weird.

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– Announcer: Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends only in Wisconsin since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer is made.

– Announcer: Wisconsin’s great outdoors has something for everyone. Come for the adventure, stay for the memories. Go wild in Wisconsin. To build your adventure visit DNR.WI.gov.

– Announcer: From production to processing, right down to our plates. There are over 15,000 employers in Wisconsin with career opportunities to fulfill your dreams and feed the world. Hungry for more? Shape your career with these companies and others at faBWISCONSIN.com.

– Announcer: Specialty crop craft beverages use fruit grown on Wisconsin orchards and vineyards to create award-winning ciders and wines. Wisconsin’s cold climate creates characteristics and complexities that make this craft beverage unique to our state.

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– We’re in Phillips. A small community in north-central Wisconsin known for its rugged beauty and ample game birds. Today we’re gonna meet up with our friends Emily and Jacob. And they’ll show us around the woods in search of grouse and woodcock. We’re gonna catch up with them over breakfast at Bonnie’s Diner.

[upbeat casual music]

Tell us a little bit about what we’re gonna do today and what we might expect to find.

– Definitely, so we have a spot today that we think is gonna be pretty good for grouse. We’re hoping to find some woodcock too or timberdoodles. Just based on some of the habitat cover that’s around.

[upbeat casual music]

– Luke: What are the ideal conditions for grouse?

– Emily: Well, grouse really like inch diameter popple trees. So, we’re looking for just like recently cut popples and others.

– So, kind of like recent, maybe logging operations. Or areas that have been kind of left to go on their own accord, right?

– Yep, up north is great because you get a lot of paper company lands that are harvesting on a regular basis. And so they are always having the popples and others can come back up again.

– Luke: Behind me there’s a lot of blaze orange and camo going on. This is a big deal for people up here, isn’t it?

– Yeah, definitely. And the colors, right now, especially it’s the 23rd of October. And so it’s just a beautiful time to be out in the woods.

[upbeat casual music]

[chattering]

– Luke: That was a good recommendation, that hit the spot.

– Yeah, everybody’s always at Bonnie’s today.

– All right, well it looks beautiful. Let’s go hunting.

– Emily: Let’s chase some birds.

– Cool.

[upbeat casual music]

We are pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. And that’s not to take anything away from anybody who lives out here. But you definitely get the feeling of desolation when we turn off that main highway and now it’s on like the dirt gravel roads. Anytime I’m about to go outside I always get really anxious and excited. I can’t wait to get out and walk around. The woods are usually my zen, I’m pumped. So, I feel like we’re getting close here. And actually, you know, my own excitement is amplified by the dogs. And I assume that we have to let them out here soon, right?

– Yep, definitely. We have left in the back is Ila and she is a two-year-old German short hair. So, she has been hunting quite a bit down in the southern part of the state. But just out a few times on grouse. So, we’ll get her some experience today. I always like a little drama queen. Like, she doesn’t like to go through brush, she goes ‘ew.’

[laughing]

Basically all we have to do is put the collars on the dogs. They get a beeper collar. Typically they wear bells and so they’ll ring and ring and ring. And then when they stop and go on point, the bells stop. But that kind of, it’s tricky to find them in the brush sometimes. So, our beeper collars. They just beep, beep, beep and then when they go on point there’s a hawk scream.

– Yes.

[laughing]

– People think that that makes the birds figure it out a little more. But, I don’t know.

– Can you replicate what we might hear as far as the hawk scream?

[hawk screaming]

[laughing]

– It’s gonna sound just like that, don’t worry.

[laughing]

– Luke: Cool, I can’t wait.

– So, I’ll just grab the guns and stuff while she runs around. This is my break-action over-under. So, you put two shells in there. And so this one’s really nice because you can tell when it’s safe. And it’s a little bit more maneuverable in the grouse woods.

– This is a 20 gauge. I grew up shooting this gun. This is the one that when my father taught me how to hunt and we used to hunt grouse together. Something small, something light. Something that I can control as a young man who was starting to hunt. And you know, now it’s beautiful. It’s a symbol of my family and the tradition of hunting.

– Jacob: Let’s go.

– Luke: Who is this lady?

– Jacob: He’s a man.

– Luke: That’s a man. My bad, the long hair just got confusing.

– This is Art. He’s a German long hair pointer.

– I bet you Art knows exactly what he is doing out here, doesn’t he?

– He does, generally.

– Luke: Generally, okay good.

– Maybe not on camera, we’ll see.

– Luke: Awesome, all right. What should we do? Should we go back in the woods?

– Jacob: I think we’ll head to that corner down there and work down this side of the road.

[casual music]

– Give me just a little bit of insight or tip here. What’s the best way to hunt for grouse?

– Emily: You can definitely walk through the woods and flush them yourself. But, it’s nice to have the dog ’cause they can work the breeze. They can tell when they’re there a lot faster than you can. And it’s just really hard to see them out in the woods. Should we just cut in this way? Gonna turn her collar on now.

– Luke: I’m really excited to get out here and I think a lot of people when they get to the woods are usually really excited to hunt.

– Emily: Yeah.

– Luke: But what are some safety things that we can keep in mind to not only protect ourselves but the dogs and anyone else around us?

– Emily: Just always being aware of where you’re hunting party is and then the dog as well. If we can we’ll try to get one or two people on either side of the dog. And she’ll be kind of in the middle and all the guns will be pointing out.

[casual music]

What’s great about pointing dogs is that they won’t go in and flush the bird right away. She’s trained to stay on the point until we go in and flush the bird together and take shots that way.

[casual music]

[beeping]

[casual music]

– Luke: Do you see it?

[beeping]

– Jacob: Yeah, it’s a flush right over here. Up and down really close.

– Our dog Art here kicked up a bird. Probably about 20 yards to my left. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a position to take a shot at it. If it were to kick up right here I’d feel okay about it. But this is so thick in here. So, trying to get something that is, number one, safe. But, number two, an effective shot on a bird is tricky because if you notice you can’t really swing with this much cover. So, you got to be, got to put yourself in a position to be successful, which is tough. You know, we’re in the thick of it man. We’re out here and it’s still so beautiful. It’s a great day to be outside. You know, it’s so quiet.

[beeping]

He’s right between us right now.

– Can I see you again? Do you guys want to come up or should I just–

– Luke: Go for it, you got it.

[beeping]

– Emily: I didn’t have time to shoulder my gun very well. It was like way down here.

– That’s grouse and woodcock kind of use. Get it up in the air and pull the trigger.

– Luke: Sure, right.

[beeping]

– Luke: What you two are doing is rooted in being in the outdoors. I can tell that you’re both ardently passionate about this place. How does that combine with the sense of conservation?

– Emily: So, I didn’t start hunting until I was 21. After I met Jacob and he could show me how to do that. For me, hunting just took me into the outdoors in a way that I hadn’t been before. I wouldn’t go hiking through this gnarly old piece of popple mess. But, it just brought me out into the outdoors where I wouldn’t normally have forged ahead on I think.

Hunting is definitely a traditional way to experience the outdoors, especially in Wisconsin. But, it’s pretty clear that that’s changing. Small game hunting, such as grouse hunting and woodcock hunting. That’s took an even bigger decline. But, for us, what I think is important to show people what it’s like to have this different experience. And ways that you can expand your experience of nature and appreciate it maybe even more.

– Jacob: Come out here and maybe you see somebody drive down the road. But, you just get to kind of relax. And the only thing you’ve got reminding you of modern life is the sound of the beeper.

[laughing]

– Luke: Yeah.

– Which sometimes gets annoying.

[laughing]

But it’s just, it’s great to be in these places that are set aside. You know, this is county forest that we’re on right now. And there’s tons of county forest up here. Then there’s national forests, state forests. So just tons of land that’s set aside and you can get lost in it a little bit. And it’s a great feeling.

– It is a good feeling, isn’t it? Where you don’t necessarily know where you’re going. You can just walk and literally. It’s hard work walking through here but you find things that you didn’t set out to discover. And usually, those things are inside of us. So, this is a great experience. Thanks for taking me along. Should we keep walking?

[beeping]

Get them birds.

[beeping]

– There’s a bird running in front of us. A grouse on the ground. Let’s try to walk up that way. I saw a couple.

[beeping]

– He’s staring.

[gun shooting]

I think all of us got that one.

– Luke: I didn’t hit it, you hit it.

– I did? Yeah, woodcocks are very hard to hit and that’s actually my first woodcock ever. So, I’m pretty pleased. And I’ve been hunting over dogs for eight years.

[laughing]

[dog whistling]

– Jacob: Art can’t hear, he’s starting to not hear very well. That’s my excuse for him.

[laughing]

Birds in the wild. Kind of loses us.

[beeping]

– Emily: Is it dead? Can I see it?

– That a way.

– Emily: What?

– Luke: That a way.

– Yeah, totally. I was hoping I would get one today ’cause the last few years. It’s like we’ve been working on my gun fit a lot and I’ve been just practicing a lot more doing skeets and I think that really helps. Eight years in the making.

[laughing]

For one little bird but they’re so interesting.

– Jacob: We just skin them and do legs and maybe that first wing bone and cook them whole.

– That sounds delicious. These are worked animals. So, this isn’t like the chicken breast that you might buy at the grocery store. Or like the duck breast you might get that’s been kind of raised in confinement. This is a real living thing. And I think because of that there is a certain gaminess or a life-e-ness that sometimes accompanies it. Honestly to cook a bird or to cook an animal that’s been taken in the wild is like to have the ultimate reverence for it. And you have to when you prepare it. I would say like medium at the most. So, this is something you don’t want to overcook. This thing gave its life to feed us and I think that when you go at it with that mind frame. There’s really no way that it can taste bad.

[casual music]

[gun shooting]

[casual music]

With the woodcock Emily harvested and the one that Jacob added. We head to the Rough Grouse Lodge in Wilson Lake. Where the birds will be dressed for dinner and I’ll put together a meal that reflects the true spirit of the north woods.

– Jacob: That’s a really nice and fatty bird.

– I know, you can see all the fat right along the back here. The skin on a lot of game birds comes off really easily. So, even just the shots. Expose the breast here and the– it really just peels off. So, you can do most of it with your fingers.

– I think the breast meat is the best. I mean the legs are nice little tasty parts too that I think are often overlooked. Woodcock are a little bit unique in that they have dark meat for the breast meat. And then legs are actually a lighter meat. So, that’s pretty much the end product.

– Starting to look like a tiny chicken.

– Luke: Did you guys get the birds cleaned?

– We did. They cleaned up really nicely.

– Oh my gosh, look at the flare on this thing too. Woodcock and grouse, they are a wild game bird. And a lot of times like people find those flavors a little intimidating. So, I thought I would take something that was a little intimidating and make it really, really basic. And what I want to do today is kind of replicate my grandmother’s fried chicken recipe.

– Sounds good.

– So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna take these birds and I’m gonna brine them in the buttermilk. But while I do that why don’t you guys make yourselves comfortable. And kick your feet up and have a beer and we’ll this thing ready to go.

– Sounds perfect, thanks Luke.

– Thanks, guys. So, we’re going to start by taking the woodcock. And we’re gonna place them in the buttermilk brine. We’re gonna set this aside and let them marinate for probably 25, 30 minutes.

Next, we are going to turn on our pan and I want this on a really nice medium-high heat. And I kind of think that you can’t do a hunter’s ragout without having some sort of nod to the time honor tradition that is cast iron. So, we’re gonna take and put some of this bacon in the pan to start it sweating. Once we can hear this working we’re gonna come in with our potatoes. And the reason that I started this bacon before I started my potatoes is because I want that fat to permeate into the potato itself. Now, what I’d like to do for the next seven or eight minutes or so is put a lid on this. And the reason I want to put a lid on it. I’m not a huge fan of cooking with lids usually. But, in this instance, because we didn’t blanch the potatoes to cook them ahead of time. I’m gonna actually capture the steam that they’re throwing off as they’re starting to cook. And that will help with those potatoes cook more quickly. We’re gonna give this a little push around here. Bacon starting to get a little crispy. I can see some color on the outside of these potatoes. I think it’s time to add all my other ingredients into the saut and let them cook down just a little bit, mm. And now, just to give it a little acidity. To round it out I’m gonna pour some of this delicious Wisconsin wine in the pan.

At this point, I’d like to take this duck stock that Jacob has provided. And start reducing it in the saucepan because ultimately it’s all gonna end up with our vegetables in here. But I think if I can work it down a little bit I can get a little more viscosity out of it. And that’s gonna make for a richer ragout underneath.

[casual music]

That smells good.

[casual music]

We’re gonna let that reduce.

[casual music]

Now that I have this all kind of working together a little bit. I’m gonna take the opportunity to take this stock which is nice and rolling. And it has been steeping with the thyme for a little bit now. And add it to our ragout set.

[casual music]

We’re gonna take half a stick of this Wisconsin butter. My ragout is really starting to come together here. And you can see through the consistency that the starch is actually starting to throw out of those Yukon Gold potatoes which is why we chose those in the first place. It also adds like a really, really hearty richness. It’s delicious.

Our woodcock has been marinating for about a half an hour. So, this is all-purpose flour, salt, back pepper. I’m gonna take and very carefully let this little bit of woodcock drip dry just for a second. And then I’m gonna place it in seasoned flour. Now, using my dry hand I’m gonna take the excess flour and sprinkle it over the top. ‘Cause I want to make sure that this all gets incorporated. Now, I’m gonna take and just basically like this. And we’re gonna lay this down into that oil. I have Canola Oil with a little bit of Crisco in there. And the Crisco reasoning, honestly, is because my grandmother always fried chicken in Crisco. And some things you just don’t fix if they’re not broken.

So, because I don’t actually have a deep fryer here and in most places you’re probably not gonna have one. I’m taking the hot oil and I’m actually basting the top of the bird. I can see that it’s getting nice and crispy and golden which is exactly the way that I want it. All right, we’re ready to plate up. So I’m gonna take the cast iron skillet over here. And we can see this all kind of cook down together. So, all the richness, all the starch. And this bite is the most quintessential fall and wintertime food for me. This is exactly what I want after a cold day out in the woods. Gonna go right in the middle of the plate.

[casual music]

Now for our fried woodcock.

[casual music]

And there we have it. A buttermilk fried woodcock harvested outside of beautiful Phillips Wisconsin. With Hunter’s Stew and a little bit of homemade duck stock reduction.

[casual music]

Thanks for letting me cook for you guys.

– Oh my gosh, thank you.

– You’re welcome.

– This looks beautiful.

– Looks amazing.

– Luke: Good, I’m glad.

– Jacob: Thank you. This is the moment of truth. When the hunter actually tries the quarry.

– Luke: How is that?

– Jacob: This is crisp.

– Luke: Is it? Is it good?

– Yeah, it’s tender.

– Eating woodcock is rich, it’s gamy. You know, there is definitely the essence of the forest in that meat. I feel like I’m the lucky one because I got to be with you guys today in the forest. And watch you working with your dogs and having a good time just walking around. It was all so really beautiful.

– I didn’t grow up hunting at all. I kind of had that view where I felt like I didn’t really need to kill an animal to appreciate it. But to me hunting is being outside, it’s being with family. It’s being with the dogs and yeah. When it does work out and you’re able to eat something that’s completely local. That just kind of tops the cake really.

– Sure, here’s to a day in the woods. Thanks a lot friends.

– Yeah, it was a great day.

– Thanks for cooking.

– Oh, you’re welcome. Mm, that looks good.

– Thank you, sir.

– Do you know the difference between jam and jelly?

– Hold on, I feel like I know this. Jam, isn’t that just like sugared. Oh yeah, is it pureed versus chunky?

– You can actually pump up the jelly.

– What do you mean? Like it’s too thick? What do you mean by pump up?

– Pump up the jam, the song.

[laughing]

– Oh, god.

[laughing]

– The only one who saw that coming is that guy.

[laughing]

– Announcer: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

– Announcer: Introducing Organic Valley Ultra. Milk with more protein, half the sugar, and no toxic pesticides.

– Let’s be honest, none of that healthy stuff really matters unless our kids will drink it.

[upbeat dramatic music]

[cow mooing]

– Yeah, I would drink that.

– You hear that? She would drink that.

[cheering]

– Parents are weird.

– Announcer: More protein, half the sugar. Organic Valley Ultra.

– Announcer: The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie. And remind you that in Wisconsin we dream in cheese. Just look for our badge. It’s on everything we make.

– Announcer: Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends only in Wisconsin since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer is made.

– Announcer: Wisconsin’s great outdoors has something for everyone. Come for the adventure, stay for the memories. Go wild in Wisconsin. To build your adventure visit DNR.WI.gov.

– Announcer: From production to processing right down to our plates. There are over 15,000 employers in Wisconsin with career opportunities to fulfill your dreams and feed the world. Hungry for more? Shape your career with these companies and others at FabWISCONSIN.com.

– Announcer: Specialty crop craft beverages use fruit grown on Wisconsin orchards and vineyards to create award-winning ciders and wines. Wisconsin’s cold climate creates characteristics and complexities that make this craft beverage unique to our state.

– Announcer: Society Insurance. Freshwater Family Farms. J. Henry and Sons Bourbon. Something Special from Wisconsin. Marcus Hotels and Resorts. Central Wisconsin Craft Collective. 91.7 WMSE. Edible Milwaukee Magazine. Also, with the support of the friends of PBS Wisconsin.

– Announcer: For more information about upcoming Wisconsin Foodie special events and dinners. Please go to WisconsinFoodie.com Still hungry for more? Get connected on Facebook and Instagram and also make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Where you’ll find past episodes and special segments.

[casual music]