Taste of the Wild: Fried onion waterfowl burger jerky

In the opinion of contributor Eileen Clarke, the trouble with making waterfowl into jerky is they’re not elk. She points out that while you will get a few perfectly shaped slices of meat, mostly from the geese, more often you will struggle with random pieces of meat that are narrow, or thin tag ends, or ones that are thick on one end and thin on the other.

You could try to separate thick from thin, and arrange them on the cooking grid so you can easily remove the thinner slices of jerky earlier, or take Eileen’s advice and pull out the meat grinder.

Some of the other equipment you should use when making this jerky includes a jerky gun and a dehydrator. You can dry jerky in the oven under low heat, but Eileen says, “If you don’t have air conditioning or a spare oven in the garage, a dehydrator won’t heat up the house.”

She offers solid advice toward purchasing a dehydrator in saying, “Don’t go cheap. It’s like meat grinders: the initial investment is higher, but the equipment works better, lasts longer and saves in the long run. The Excaliber™ I’ve used for several years operates at safe jerky cooking levels, consistently, something the cheaper models don’t always do. And gardeners? I slice and dehydrate tomatoes, and use them in soups all winter. No late summer canning, no taking up room in the freezer.”

So, oven or dehydrator, grab a goose or covey of ducks from the freezer. (You know you’ve been avoiding them.) Hopefully the ducks are dabblers, good tasting little beasties, but if not, the tabasco, cumin and chili powder in this recipe will help.

A NOTE FROM THE KITCHEN: If you don’t have waterfowl in the freezer, feel free to use big game meat.

INGREDIENTS

For 1.5 pounds ground meat

1.5 pounds ground goose or duck meat

2 tablespoons Chipotle Tabasco ® Sauce (be certain it is the Chipotle, not the traditional Tabasco Red Sauce)

2 eggs

2 cups French’s Crispy Fried Onions

2 tablespoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon salt

PREPARATION

Mix the ingredients together well, and place in a tightly sealed plastic bag or storage container. Let it sit overnight in the refrigerator to let the flavor develop. To taste: cook a 1-inch ball of mix for 15-20 seconds in the microwave.

COOKING

1. Shape the jerky with a jerky gun and arrange the jerky strips on grids over foil-lined drip pans. Set your dehydrator to the jerky mode and check according to manufacturer’s instructions, or preheat the oven to 160°F and cook about 3-4 hours. Do cook it enough but use caution not to overcook jerky. Cooked through, your jerky should bend easily, not crack. Brittle is overcooked. White strands of meat inside? Undercooked. And an important note is that ground burger jerky is less dense than strip jerky, so takes less cooking time.

2. Let the jerky cool and air dry in the turned-off oven or on the counter, for 6-8 hours, then store in resealable plastic bags. You can store your jerky in the fridge for 2-3 weeks, or in the freezer up to 3 months.

SHAPING JERKY

The easiest way to shape jerky is with a jerky gun. Fill it with your mix, attach the nozzle for sticks or strips, then press. All the pieces will be the same thickness and density so everything is ready at the same time. No guessing.

No jerky gun? Spread your mix on a sheet of wax paper or plastic wrap, place a second sheet on top and roll it out to ¼-inch thickness. Transfer to a cookie sheet, adjust to fit, and freeze. Remove the wax paper. On a cutting board with a chef’s knife shape your jerky into strips.

Photos and recipe by Eileen Clarke

A NOTE FROM THE CHEF

If the only thing you’re using French’s® Crispy Fried Onions for is a green bean casserole, you’re missing out on an incredible jerky. The egg yolks in this recipe do add fat, so freezer life will be a bit shorter – just as when you add beef fat to a jerky.

But I know a lot of people who simply can’t make jerky fast enough. For most of us, jerky never makes it into the freezer, much less long enough to freezer-burn the fat.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Eileen Clarke has written a dozen wild game cookbooks and was game cooking columnist for Field & Stream and Successful Hunter.

To save $5 on Stalking the Wild Jerky: 100 Easy to Follow Wild Jerky Recipes or any of her other game cookbooks, enter the words “Outdoor News” (in the coupon box) at her website www.riflesandrecipes.com 406-521-0273.

Follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/OutdoorNewsTasteOfTheWild

Find more game and fish recipes at outdoornews.com/cooking