More of why we hunt........

[bswiv]

You'll forgive the quality of the pictures.......

A friend sent us a Snow Goose, the smaller dark one, and a Lesser Canada last week to add to the Easter feed for the clan. We also had a turkey shot last week and the salmon. No we did not catch the salmon. That's some of the stuff we sell at the market, raised in Scottland, Atlantic species......VERY good!

So the geese went on the smoker after being soaked in lemmon juice and rubbed down with spice. About 2 hours with Hickory and Oak then wraped in foil and into the oven for another hour.

The salmon gets soaked in olive oil and spiced then goes on the smoker for about a hour.

The turkey was cooked all night, 12 hours, at low temp with venison sausage, potatos and seasoning.

Turkey was exellent.
Salmon was exellent.
Geese..........edible...........but not great. I think something like the turkey recipe would do the geese better justice. Seems that they dried out more than I thought they would for being a fat as they were, especially the Canada.

 

[FrontSight]

ooooh that made me hungry!!

I have also found that wild geese and ducks dry out very quickly, and they go from being juicy to dry in a matter of seconds! A good recipie for goose is to cut in quarters, inject with marinade, steam it for about 1/2 hour and then braise it quickly....delicious!

Steam it for less than you'd think it would need, and use a thermometer to check the internal temp...as soon as it hits 155 - 160 I remove it right away...

 

[Hirlau]

Now that's living, good!!

 

[ddeyo1]

mmm... gonna need to go cook myslef some venison! right now... kbye

 

[B. Lahey]

Nice smoker.

I'm going to need a good sized smokebox like that one of these days. Did you build that one?

 

[Buzzcook]

Wild geese don't have the fat reserves that a domestic goose does. If you cook them whole put them in a roasting pan with a lid, to keep them moist. Remove the lid to brown the skin for the last few minutes.
Basting the skin with molasses helps keep the moister in and gives the skin a nice glaze. You can do a similar thing with a brown sugar dry rub.

 

[impalacustom]

They don't call wild geese and duck, "sky carp" for nothing. I have found the only way to eat them is give them away and let someone else eat them. I hate geese and duck, but would love to shoot me a sandhill crane, just if my state would let me.

 

[bswiv]

B. Lehey:


My brother in law rebuilds industrial air compressors. The smoker is made from a air tank that had a crack around a fitting. Steel in a air tank is much thicker because of the pressure than in many sorts of tanks. A guy dow the stree who works at the ship yard as a welder did the fabrication. Internal racks are stainless. The fire box has a short pipe connecting it to the main tank so that when it burns out, which all fireboxes will eventually do, it can be cut off and easily replaced.

Cost about $200. Kind of expensive but it's almost 10 years old and still going strong. Even the firebox has some years left on it.

 

[Scorch]

Geese..........edible...........but not great. I think something like the turkey recipe would do the geese better justice

What I do with geese is breast them out, marinade in teriyaki sauce for 1-2 days, then smoke until just barely done (medium). Slice thin on a bias, then serve like cold cuts for appetizers with cheese and crackers. Guaranteed to disappear in about 5 minutes. I smoked breasts from 9 Canada geese that way (18 breasts total at about 12 oz each) for a friend, and they all disappeared during the Superbowl with 3 people eating them. If you do the math, that's about 4 pounds of smoked breast meat per person!!! Brats and BBQ pork were still left over. What a feast!