Reimagining Wild Game Cooking With Danielle Prewett
The food on wildandwhole.com, a North Dakota-based wild game cooking blog, is a feast for the senses. A perfect summer salad features juicy slices of grilled goose breast and ripe peaches, nectarines and apricots.
Pheasant is featured in fragrant pho, offering a new interpretation of a classic Vietnamese soup.
Venison takes on an international flair in countless variations – savory venison meatballs flavored with Middle Eastern spices, hearty venison chili with chorizo and spicy Thai venison lettuce cups.
These are not your grandmother’s wild game recipes.
That’s because Danielle Prewett, the website’s creator (and chef, photographer, writer, hunter and outdoorswoman) doesn’t particularly believe wild game needs its own recipes.
“A lot of people have this notion that wild game is its own separate little food group that gets its own special recipes – your mom and pop’s crock pot recipes handed down from the family. And that’s great. You don’t have to get rid of that,” said Prewett, as she settled into a chair in the sunny living room of the comfortable Dickinson home she shares with her husband, Travis. “But I like to think of wild game like meat you’d buy from the grocery store. Think of pheasant like chicken. With duck, venison, treat it like red meat – goose too. Once you kind of realize it’s just red meat, white meat, you realize that you can make anything you can make with chicken or beef and make it with wild game. You don’t need a special recipe.”
Sure, she says, wild game doesn’t need to cook as long as a steak or chicken, since it’s so lean. And Prewett always recommends wet or dry brining wild game, just like you would for a Thanksgiving turkey. “The salt helps to bring out the juices to ensure it retains its moisture,” she explained. Prewett’s recipes show that, with a few tips and tricks, wild game can be just as versatile and easy to prepare as any other protein.
For hunters and home cooks new to cooking wild game – or those accustomed to pairing it with a trusty can of cream of mushroom soup – this freedom can seem intimidating. Prewett understands that trying something new in the kitchen can be a challenge. She didn’t always cook and develop recipes for fun.
“When I was in college I was the worst cook ever,” she said with a laugh. “I was the person burning frozen pizzas. Then I met my husband, and his mom and his family are excellent cooks and I was pretty embarrassed by how terrible I was. They kind of got me into cooking when we were dating.”
After finishing college in Lubbock, Texas (where they met) the couple moved to Houston, where Prewett taught cooking classes in a high-end cookware store. “It was like four classes a day for appetizers, main, a side and dessert,” Prewett remembered. “And so all that repetition, over and over and over again really sort of set the foundation for how to cook.”
Growing up in Wichita Falls, in northern Texas, Prewett loved being outdoors, but didn’t hunt much. But her husband was an avid hunter and angler. And that influenced her cooking.
“Living in Houston, we always had venison, always had dove and duck,” she said. “That was sort of my first experiment with wild game. I was like, ‘This is exotic, this is gourmet, this is fun.’ And nobody else can get this kind of food unless you hunt it.”
A move north gave the couple a chance to hunt more often. “When we moved to North Dakota, we realized there’s tons of public land and such a variety of wild game,” Prewett said. “Living up here enabled us to sort of embrace a very different lifestyle that you can’t get in Houston. Cooking wild game really evolved from this idea of wanting to know where all my food comes from.”
Like food writer, Michael Pollan, and chef, hunter and angler, Hank Shaw, Prewett believes in eating healthy, high quality, minimally processed food. Her motto – both for her recipes and for her life – is simple: Eat wild. Eat whole. Live well. Prewett has steadily adjusted her lifestyle to reflect her passion for hunting for her own food, her respect for the traditional custom of eating the entire animal and her love of healthy, flavorful food and spending time outdoors.
Prewett’s website grew out of her own struggle to find flavorful wild game recipes that also worked with her lifestyle. “I searched the internet looking for recipes, and most of what I found were pretty unhealthy,” she explained. “So I decided to start cooking wild game the way I like to eat and over the years it has really evolved. I somehow stumbled upon a niche. I never thought in a million years I would ever start a blog, but family and friends put the idea into my head and eventually convinced me.”
Danielle Prewett and her dogs Zissou (left) and Marina.
She started wildandwhole.com in July of 2016 and said she was shocked when folks, other than her family and friends, started responding to her posts. But as her work evolves and as the community around the website grows, the project has become a passion. “It has surprisingly become a hobby I really enjoy,” Prewett said. “Because I am a creative soul at heart, I find that taking photos of the meals I harvest is a way for me to express a very meaningful way of life. My hope is that it inspires others to eat mindfully, get outside and connect with food in a bigger way.”
People appreciate the photos too, as she has more than 3,000 followers on her Instagram account.
Prewett practices what she preaches. She only cooks meat or fish that she or her husband have hunted or caught themselves. “I believe you are what you eat, eats” she said, pausing for emphasis on that last part.
The Prewett household is a busy one during the hunting season. Both partners balance full time jobs (Travis works in oil and gas and Danielle is a legal secretary and a certified yoga instructor) with securing enough food to stock their freezers for the year.
So what’s Prewett’s favorite thing to hunt? “I have to say dove. And everyone is gonna make fun of me for that!” she laughed. “But I love dove hunting. Because one: the weather is still hot. And two: they’re really fun. And they’re fast little boogers and it’s a great way to get ready for hunting season and get some target practice.” Plus, she added, dove hunting is a tradition in Texas.
The shotgun Prewett uses, a handsome, 1953 Belgian-made Browning 20 gauge – is steeped in tradition as well. It was once her husband’s grandfather’s. She brings it pheasant hunting, too. “Pheasant hunting really changes when you’ve got a great pointer to hunt behind,” she added.
The Prewetts have two bird dogs. Marina is a golden retriever and a consummate water dog. Zissou is a Duetsch Drahtharr, a German wirehair pointer bred to competitive European standards, and a versatile hunting dog. The Prewetts are working through the complex certification process to breed him.
That means the couple and their dogs spend a lot of time together outdoors. Prewett loves the camaraderie of hunting and being outdoors with family and friends. One particular hunt back in Texas sparked her interest in eating the whole animal – even the bits that most hunters discard.
“I’m sort of a nose to tail eater,” she explained. “And I found this recipe from Hank Shaw years ago for hearts and livers in Cajun dirty rice. It was opening day of dove season. So I told everybody to save hearts and livers from all the birds. I was half joking, because if you know what a dove looks like, the whole bird is about this big” – and here she holds out her hand to indicate that the bird could fit inside her cupped palm – “so each heart is about the size of a kidney bean. It’s tiny.”
She might have been joking, but her hunting party wasn’t. They came back with a bag full of hearts and livers. And the resulting meal was a revelation “And since then I’ve always sort of saved the odd bits,” she said. “And if you look in my freezer, you’ll find duck feet, you’ll find carcasses – all sorts of stuff.”
Prewett recommends vacuum-sealed, food saver freezer bags over butcher paper to keep meat looking and tasting fresh. She always sorts, bags and labels every cut of meat separately.
Her husband jokes that he got some odd looks when she asked him to save fish heads to make fish stock, but both say that the extra effort definitely pays off. A great meal starts with processing, Prewett explained. And the couple works together to make that step easier.
Danielle Prewett, and Zissou, at sunset after a successful day of hunting ring-necked pheasants in North Dakota.
“On the days that she doesn’t come hunting with me, I’ll help to make sure I don’t over-burden her and I’ll take the birds and I’ll clean them in the garage,” said Travis. “And I spend a lot of time making sure they’re perfectly clean and I’ll put them on a plate and I’ll bring them in. At that point, I’m exhausted and I just want to take a shower and call it a night, but then she can dry it off and salt it and put it in freezer bags.”
She acknowledges that it does take a little more time to process meat using her system. But she says it results in better tasting meat and much faster prep times, since she’s not digging in the freezer and guessing about what she’s defrosting, or finishing a hasty processing job when she’s already in cooking mode. Smart game processing also adds to the appeal of a meal.
“We eat with our eyes,” Prewett said. “And that all starts with processing meat. I know some people get lazy, they step on the wings and rip the breast out. Well, when you go to cook it, it’s not going to look pretty. It’s about taking your time, getting the BBs out, getting the feathers out, making it look pretty.”
Many of the recipes Prewett creates and adapts on wildandwhole.com can be dairy-free or gluten-free.
“I always say it’s about eating mindfully,” Prewett said, sounding every bit like the yoga instructor she is. “It’s about knowing what your body needs.”
Prewett will have a chance to share that message on a larger stage – literally – when she will be one of the headlining presenters for the Wild Game Cooking Stage at the 2018 National Pheasant Fest and Quail Classic hosted by Pheasants Forever, February 16-18 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
“We started following her when her recipes first started running in the Outdoor News weekly paper,” said Pheasants Forever’s public relations manager Jared Wiklund. “She really does make some interesting dishes, which we believe our members and followers will connect with at Pheasant Fest … Danielle will be an excellent addition to the show and we look forward to showcasing her talents as a wild game chef and upland hunter.”
It was a contact that Danielle remembers well. “I was a little surprised because it was the first time they've ever reached out to me, and I realized that my blog was actually starting to grow an audience,” Prewett said. “I am obviously very excited. It will be a lot of fun.”
Prewett knows that this event could mark a turning point in her career. But until then, the website is still a hobby, a chance to develop recipes, refine her food styling and photography skills (her favorite part of the process) and share her love of wild, whole, healthy food with the world.
“I’m continuing to just have fun with it and do what I enjoy,” Prewett said. “If I had a goal in life, it would just be to find happiness. I feel like everybody is always striving to find out what that is. But I think we’ve really found that here in North Dakota.
“Everything that we do outside, everything that we cook, just the lifestyle in general has been very meaningful for us. We’re very happy.”
ALICIA UNDERLEE NELSON, West Fargo, is a freelance writer who also blogs about food, travel and outdoor recreation in North Dakota and beyond at prairiestylefile.com.
Grilled Pheasant with Mojo Sauce
Recipe and Photos by Danielle Prewett
This grilled, spatchcocked pheasant is probably one of the more satisfying meals I have made with wild game to date. The crispy skin is full of flavor from a homemade dry rub, the meat is tender and juicy, and the citrus-garlic mojo sauce is delicious.
Spatchcocked, aka butterflied, is an easy way to break down a whole bird that you want to be grilled a little quicker and more evenly. Essentially, you just cut along each side of the back bone, remove the spine, and flatten the bird open.
You can serve this with any of your favorite side veggies. I chose a fresh salad with roasted sweet potatoes, chopped mango, and sliced avocado. The mojo sauce is particularly good as a salad dressing.
Visit wildandwhole.com for a more detailed guide, with photos, along with many other wild game dishes.
Serves 4; makes 2 cups of mojo sauce
Ingredients:
2 whole pheasants, plucked with skin on
Duck fat or oil for grilling
4 skewers (2 for each bird)
Dry Rub:
1 T. salt
1 t. black pepper
2 t. dried oregano
1 t. cumin
1 t. red pepper flakes
1 t. onion powder
1 t. garlic powder
1 lime, zested on a microplane
Mojo Sauce:
1/2 C. fresh orange juice
1/4 C. fresh lime juice
1 C. olive oil
8 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 C. fresh cilantro
1 Jalapeno, roughly chopped (with or without seeds)
Salt and pepper to taste
METHOD
Prepare Dry Rub:
- Make the dry rub by mixing the listed ingredients in a bowl. The spice mix should be plenty for two whole birds. Save the leftover rub for seasoning side veggies, potatoes, etc.
Spatchcocked Pheasant:
- Using heavy duty scissors, cut along each side of the spine and remove. Roll the legs out front and flip the bird over so that it faces up. Press down firmly with your hands on the breast plate to it flatten out some.
- Pat the pheasant as dry as you can with paper towels. Season generously with the dry rub. If you kept the skin on, be sure to rub the spice mix under the skin so it covers the meat, being careful not to tear it.
- For optimal results, set your birds skin side up on a sheet pan or a container uncovered so that it gets plenty of airflow. Let the pheasants rest and dry out for several hours or overnight in the fridge if possible. The drier the skin is, the crispier it will be once grilled.
Mojo Sauce:
- Prepare the mojo sauce by combining all of the above listed ingredients in a food processor or blender. Puree until smooth and store in the fridge until ready to use.
Grill:
- Remove the pheasant from the fridge about an hour before grilling and let it come to room temperature. Rub the birds down with about 2 teaspoons of fat/oil per bird. Use two skewers per bird to help stabilize it by piercing through the top of the breast, and crossing over through the thigh meat (on both sides).
- Set the grill to medium high heat. Grill the pheasant skin-side down for about 5 minutes or until the skin begins to char. Flip the pheasant and then move it to the side of the grill over indirect heat. Turn the burners down to low, close the lid and let it continue to cook for an additional 25-30 minutes or until the thigh meat registers to 165 degrees.
- Remove the pheasant from the grill and serve with the mojo sauce.
NOTE: You can also use a skinless pheasant for this recipe and use the mojo sauce as a marinade instead of the dry rub.