Wild Vittles: Wild Game Cooking For Everyone

In this episode, Chris shares his journey of hunting mule deer in New Mexico. After years of applying for tags, he finally got lucky and discusses the application process, preparation, and the hunt. He reflects on the challenges faced during the trip, bagging his first mule deer, and his plans for future hunting adventures.

In this episode of the Wild Vittles podcast, Chris shares his experiences hunting pronghorn in Utah with a muzzleloader. He discusses the process of obtaining a hunting tag through the Utah draw process, the muzzleloader, bullet and powder he chose, and the e-scouting along with the real scouting leading up to the hunt. Chris reflects on the challenges of scouting new country and the excitement of opening day, detailing the moments leading up to his successful shot and the recovery of the pronghorn. 

In this episode, we will recap my 2024 elk hunting trip to Montana.  This story actually began in late 2022 and took a few twists and turns along the way.  

I've decided to start out my cookbook review project with my absolute favorite!  I use this cookbook weekly and am a huge fan.  If you don't utilize Hank Shaw's cookbooks or his on-line resources, you are really missing out.  Give a listen and give them a try!

I've decided to take a break from featuring recipe cooking on the podcast and will be pivoting to cookbook reviews for the next several episodes, so come along and hopefully you will discover new resources, new recipes and maybe a whole new way of looking at your wild game cooking.  It's going to be interesting!

Many folks likely toss out throats or collars with their fish heads and that's really a waste when it comes to your Red Fish.  In this episode, I show you how to harvest the collars from the fish and a simple preparation on the grill.  I guarantee if you give this a try, you will always keep and cook this part of your fish from now on!

The flat iron steak is a tender cut that, surprisingly, comes from the front shoulder where most of us think about tougher cuts and long cooks required to produce tender finished products.  Today, I'm using a flat iron steak from a bull elk.  This can be done with any venison, but the larger species are generally better as you need to split the steak along a tendon that runs the length of the steak.  If you do this on a small deer, your resulting steak can be thin.  This is a straightforward recipe with nothing more fancy than marinade and grilling the steak to a perfect medium rare.  

Now that the summer heat has arrived, the grilling season is in full swing.  It's also fishing season, so I'm grilling a whole flounder for the first time.  I'm utilizing a recipe from Outdoor Indoor Texan that is very straightforward, but yields a delicious result that will taste like you worked much harder for such a tasty dish!

Link to Outdoor Indoor Texan Flounder Video
 https://youtu.be/kwRGIu5e2ao?si=fWsjaQQlQNID2kvf

Summer grilling season is here and I utilize venison kebabs to bring vegetables into my meat grilling scene!  This is an easy recipe that can be scaled for a large or small groups.  In this episode I used a top round or sirloin cut, but you could also use backstrap for a more tender end result.  The veggies can vary based on your personal preferences.  I like to also add mushrooms and potatoes, but the potatoes require an additional step of parboiling to allow them to finish cooking at the same time as the other vegetables.  Cut the meat into kebab size chunks and marinade them with your favorite marinade of choice, assemble on skewers (I use wood, so they require a pre-soak), grill until done and enjoy.

Today, I'm whipping up grilled redfish tacos outside!  I'm using one fillet of redfish with the skin and scales on that I am grilling over medium high heat for about 12 minutes.  I seasoned the fish with a fajita seasoning and put a few small pieces of butter on the fish to melt in while cooking.  Meanwhile I am sautéing a couple onions that were sliced stem to stern as well as a red and yellow bell pepper also sliced into strips until soft.  Once the fish was flaky, I removed the meat from the skin and broke the fillet into small bits and mixed it into the onion & pepper mix and then added a healthy dose of the seasoning.  Put this mix into hardshell or soft tortillas, add toppings and enjoy!