Delicious duck pate

Once again we were the lucky recipients of some delicious pate from our French neighbours down the road. A few weeks ago we'd given them one of the ducks that G shot.

I don't have the exact recipe, but I know this contained hazelnuts, green peppercorns, orange zest and a dash of Grand Marnier. Absolute heaven - we munched our way through quite a substantial chunk of it on crackers the other night.

I've only ever made pate from chicken livers, so I'd be keen to find out how it's done, this pate is more like a terrine that requires cutting rather than able to be spread. To receive a treat like this as a gift once in a while really is fantastic.

Dinners and garden/orchard stuff

I cooked up one of the ducks, just did it in the slow cooker, with some stuffing (cranberry and apple) and a little dripping, it turned out really well.
Feeling generous, we gave the other duck away to a neighbour.
On an exploration of the freezer I discovered 2 ducks from last year, so these will need eating up soon.
We also butchered (that's the royal 'we', I actually mean G..) another chicken, an old Indian Game hen. I prepared this bird the same way as the young cockarel, by slow cooking first then roasting for a short time. Again this was successful, the meat was firm but not tough and very tasty.
The next day we were given some field mushrooms, so I made chicken and mushroom pasta for dinner with the leftover meat. Then I made some stock from the carcass.

On the farm front, it's great to have the rain, topping up the water tank nicely but it has prevented a lot of jobs from getting done outside. The veg garden is now seriously neglected.
We called in at Koanga gardens the other day and picked up some Maori seed potatoes 'Urenika' and 'Kowiniwini'. I've grown these a long time ago and looking forward to growing them again, in addition to some 'standard' white potatoes, not sure which varieties as yet. Also picked up a copy of their fruit and nut tree catalogue to see about adding to our orchard. Haven't made any decisions yet, although I would like to get one or 2 pears in and maybe a couple of fig trees.

Duck on the menu again

The intrepid hunter returned home this evening after a walkabout with 2 ducks for the dinner table, the first successful shoot of this year's duck season. Yay!

The goose dinner

Well last night I cooked the goose breasts. I chose an easy recipe which involved marinating the meat in some honey, thyme and balsamic vinegar. Then I roasted some potatoes in butter and thyme, added the goose about 20mins before the potatoes were due to be ready. Made some crab apple "jus" (red wine, stock, then crab apple jelly boiled up and added a knob of butter). Steamed some fresh cabbage to go with it all.
Although it all looked good and wasn't too bad to taste the goose was pretty tough! We couldn't eat most of it! So not a very successful wild food meal. I think next time I will cook it in the slow cooker and try another recipe as I don't think the balsamic vinegar really improved the flavour.
The other thing to bear in mind is we didn't know the age of the goose, and apparently they are quite long lived.

Roast duck again

Success on the hunting front, another 2 ducks. So last night we enjoyed a roast duck with roast potatoes, kumara, peas and gravy. Yum.
I think today is the last day of the game season, not sure if Graham will go out and try his luck again, it is still quite wet and windy, but apparently this is good news for duck hunters as it means the ducks fly inland for shelter.

Roast duck

Well we have just eaten the first of the ducks. I roasted it in the oven. The recipe I followed (Jo Seagar) was to brush the skin with melted butter and oil first and baste frequently during cooking. It was a 700g bird, and took about 1hr.
Was very tasty. We gave it 3/5.

Ducks at last!

Well more hunting success to report. Yesterday Graham came home with 2 ducks that he shot on a friends farm. Hoorah!
So it's time to dig out those duck recipes. I think we'll try just plain roast duck tonight. I have another recipe for duck with cider with apples and a little cream which sounds delicious, but don't have any cider. Will need to find out where I can buy good quality cider, not the pseudo cider that's sold in the stores.
Might do a bit of web searching hopefully someone in NZ makes good cider, or else imports it from England.

Goose for dinner!

What a surprise when after setting off for a bit of duck hunting, Graham came home with 2 geese!

Neither of us has eaten goose before and I quickly surfed the net to find out what would be the best way to prepare and cook it.

Turns out that geese, while being quite large birds, actually do not have all that much meat on them. After reading some instructions on one web site, we decided that 'we' (aka Graham) would remove just the breasts and also save the legs. Besides as we only have the small benchtop oven at this point in time, there'd be no way I could cook a whole goose!

So the breasts and legs are all packaged up ready to freeze, after I let them "hang" - aka sit in the fridge for a couple of days. This apparently improves the flavour of game, without letting it get too high.

I haven't decided on a recipe yet, although one with red wine, garlic, herbs sounds the right idea. Will post it when I do.

Game season part 2

Well we are a bit further down the track with game season and though hubby has ventured out several times in our locality, no birds as yet. Not very many ducks about and virtually no pheasants..... bad luck for us. Still there is time yet, and possibly better luck to be had in another location.

Game Season

Yesterday saw the beginning of the game season. Hubby went out looking for duck or pheasant but unfortunately returned empty handed. The season runs for 3 months so there's plenty of time yet to have a nice meal of game bird!
We have a wetland area at the bottom of our land which runs along the whole peninsula and fortunately several land owners who are happy to let us have access for hunting purposes. Many of the surrounding properties are empty which is good for us.
Anyway I've got a few recipes lined up to try when the time comes.