Fire It Up - Andrew Schloss [80]
Alligator: American alligators have pale pink meat with a pleasant firmness and a mild taste. Imagine the taste of chicken, pork, and rabbit all rolled together, with some marshy saltiness thrown in. The choicest cut is the tail, which contains the cylindrical tenderloin inside and is often sold pre-tenderized, meaning it has been pounded or marinated. Tail meat can be roasted or cut into medallions and grilled directly over the heat. The body and leg meat is darker and tougher—best for burgers and indirect grill-roasting.
Rabbit and hare: Rabbits have mild, finely grained, pinkish white meat with a texture somewhere between chicken and veal. Farm-raised rabbit is sold whole or in parts, typically the saddle, tender boneless loin, and slightly tougher legs. Hares (also called jackrabbits) are closely related to rabbits, but they have longer ears, bigger legs, and darker meat with a stronger flavor.
Squirrel and muskrat: As tree dwellers, squirrels feed on acorns and other nuts, which give their moist, pink meat a delicious nutty taste. Young squirrels are preferred for their tenderness and must be caught in the wild. Semiaquatic muskrats must also be trapped in the wild, near the salty marshes where they dwell. Muskrats have lean, tender, very flavorful meat with a fine grain and deep-pink color similar to hare.
In this chapter, you’ll find recipes for most of the game mentioned above. Of course, hunters and trappers cook plenty of other game meat, such as bear, beaver, raccoon, and opossum. Even horse is enjoyed around the world in dishes like Japanese sakura nabe, horse loin marinated in soy and ginger, and then grilled on skewers. In Sweden, horse meat outsells lamb. But in the United Kingdom and North America, horses are too revered to be widely eaten, despite the fact that the U.S. horsemeat industry exports nearly as much meat as the beef and pork industries.
How to Grill Game
Game meat has been steadily increasing in popularity since the 1960s, in part because it is more richly flavored and lower in fat and calories than domestic meat. When considering how to grill game, think of domestic meat cuts like beef and pork. All four-legged animals have similar body parts. Where on the game animal the meat comes from and how thick the piece of meat is largely determine the best way to grill it. As the animal’s muscles are exercised, they become more flavorful but also tougher. Cuts from well-exercised muscles like the shoulder tend to be thick and tough, requiring long, slow grilling with indirect heat and some form of moisture, such as a mop sauce, to dissolve tough connective tissue so the meat becomes fork-tender. Smaller cuts from the rack, loin, and upper leg tend to be thinner and more tender, and take well to direct grilling over medium or high heat.
In general, the meat of young game animals is preferred and, like domestic animals, farm-raised game animals are usually slaughtered before they reach sexual maturity to keep the meat tender and mild. But the lean composition of game meat makes it less forgiving on the grill than juicy, well-marbled domestic beef. It helps to soak game meat in brine (flavored salted water), which allows the meat to hang on to more moisture as it cooks over a dry fire. See the chapter How to Build Flavor into Anything Grilled for more details on brines, and use any of the brine recipes described there as “best with game meat.”
It’s also a good idea to add some fat to grilled game. Fat stimulates the flow of saliva in our mouths and increases the perception of juiciness in meats. It carries flavor, too. We only taste fat-soluble flavor compounds in the presence of fat. Rich sauces improve the taste of game meat by bringing more of its flavor compounds to our palates. A common technique is to bard (wrap) game meat in fatty ingredients like bacon or baste the meat with oil during grilling