Thread: Getting back to living off the land.....

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

eels are neat critters....still give me the heebee geebees if encounter them while in water fishing.....used to gut rabbits at same wee bridge and after a week the eels would be waiting when I came back from shooting.... Ive pulled eels in on line and they were longer than fence post,not stressed at all so I cut line happily...no way was I putting hand near that mouth. Ive tried some smoked and its good...but I just cant get past the slimey eel thing...same with possum...

Unfortunately as a youngster me and my mate decimated them with line and spear and gay abandon. I console myself that we did no where near as much damage as the blokes who trapped the waterways clean to send containers of live NZ eels to Asia. We did occasionally eat them. Over a camp fire wrapped in wild mint or skinned and pan fried at home. We should have filleted them for pan frying but instead steaked them with bone in. Too much bone . Over the camp fire the slime simply cooks off with the crackled skin. The meat was a bit earthy tasting but delicious. I learned as an adult fly-fisherman cooking brown trout in particular that to avoid the muddy taste you either fillet before cooking or you dry bake. If you wet cook them with the skin on that is where the muddy taste comes from and it pervades the flesh.

Wild goat leg just going into the oven to be slow-roasted at 140°C. Salt, pepper, dried thyme and coated with olive oil with butter on top to baste the leg

3-hour slow roasted goat leg...

Originally Posted by bumblefoot

3-hour slow roasted goat leg...

Attachment 179526

I bet you had to be quick with the camera to get that snap.
GPM

@grandpamac It was pretty bloody good! Even if that does sound a tad immodest....

Food security is: a wild goat chilling in the shade of a tree, a garden of veges, and fresh chook and duck eggs.

Yesterday's goat hanging in the cool shade of the big horse chestnut. The trick in summer is to go on afternoon hunts. That way you hang the goat, wrapped in a sheet to keep flies out, and it gets chilled quickly during the evening/night. There is a constant breeze under this tree so after cooling quickly overnight, the breeze keeps it cool in the heavy shade. It acts as an old time meat safe.

Originally Posted by bumblefoot

Food security is: a wild goat chilling in the shade of a tree, a garden of veges, and fresh chook and duck eggs.

Yesterday's goat hanging in the cool shade of the big horse chestnut. The trick in summer is to go on afternoon hunts. That way you hang the goat, wrapped in a sheet to keep flies out, and it gets chilled quickly during the evening/night. There is a constant breeze under this tree so after cooling quickly overnight, the breeze keeps it cool in the heavy shade. It acts as an old time meat safe.

Attachment 185597

Nice, but it's been around 20 degrees overnight here in the last week. Don't think that's ideal chilling temperature

It's down to about 10C here at night. But the shade and wind cools it down to around 7-ish which is about the max temp you want a fridge at. If i shot it earlier in the day I'd skin it, and take of the forequarters, legs and loins and put them in the fridge overnight

Yeah that's what I found with hanging lambs in summer too MB. My trick ( although only really doable at home of course) is to freeze a few 2L coke bottles full of water and hang them in the body cavity before I wrap it in a sheet.
Or you can wet the sheet to add to the evaporative cooling as well

Last summer was really strange here. Really hot days but the nights were autumnal chilly and usually down to about 8C! First time I've seen it like that. But it did make chilling afternoon/evening shot game simple. Once the night had dragged the temp down; the shade and wind kept it low. I suppose because the thermal mass of cooled carcase took longer to warm up. One goat I shot was hanging for 2 days and nights and was still fine. Leaving the skin on seems to help too, maybe it also helps keep the cool "in the carcase" through its insulation preventing it warming up so fast?

100% organic and the most sustainable meat available! And one less feral goat eating the native bush. Now safely chilling in the fridge for a few days. The little 10cm, NZ-made Victory drop point hunter is a cracking wee knife

You obviously head shoot to avoid wasteage. Nice goat is so underrated 😆

@Marty Henry This one was head shot; but I usually neck shoot at the head/neck junction so as not to waste meat

I share your appreciation for those blue-handled Victory knives Bumblefoot. Not just for the knife, but also the convenient and hygienic sheath which is relatively easy to wash.

When I was growing up, game was hung for convenience or necessity (with the lack of refrigeration) and I was unaware of any talk of hanging it to make it more tender or tasty. I do recall sheep being hung to allow the meat and fat to 'set' before being cut up.

If a deer was shot at the beginning of (or on the way to) a hunting trip, it might get hung in a tree in the shade for two or three days.

It was comparatively recently when I started hanging game in an attempt to increase tenderness. I don't have a chiller, and my options for hanging locations at home are limited. I have a lean-to roof on the south side of a garden shed which gets used a lot. I also have a sturdy bracket mounted to the wall of my garage. Now that our big hungry dog has gone to the happy hunting ground, I generally hang animals from the garden shed roof. I may even do it for a day or two in mid-summer.

I'm fairly convinced that hanging does make meat more tender, although I've eaten meat that wasn't hung and it has been good too. Without a few trials of hanging half the animal and immediately processing and freezing the other half, I don't like to make definite statements.

While I like to hang game, it is a hassle to get rid of the bones and offcuts if I process it at home. I like the idea of the waste being left on the ground (or buried) to help feed the soil. And while I've buried a fair bit of offal in my yard, my options are limited in a fully planted garden on a tiny section. So I have often butchered game on the hillside to ensure that only a minimum of waste has to be dumped at home. A good compromise is to just hang legs and put the small bits in the fridge. I like to hang with the skin on, but I've also hung skinned meat. I use cotton sheets to keep the flies away. I have a sheet which has been sewn to form a bag, but quite often I will just drape a sheet around the carcass and keep it in place with clothes pegs. I try to keep the cover loose to help air to circulate.

I'm not convinced that hanging pork leads to a better eating experience, and I'd love to hear what others think. I seem to have an instinct that tells me that venison and hare are OK to hang for ages and should improve over time, but I'm unsure about pork despite the fact that I've brought home dozens of pigs. Maybe I've eaten too much wild pork. In recent years we've stopped roasting big legs.... we keep the more tender cuts for oily baked dishes and I've often boiled up the rest for the various dogs in our life. I have given a lot of pork away too.... I don't like a crowded freezer. There always has to be room for the next hunt.

Originally Posted by Jhon

Unfortunately as a youngster me and my mate decimated them with line and spear and gay abandon. I console myself that we did no where near as much damage as the blokes who trapped the waterways clean to send containers of live NZ eels to Asia. We did occasionally eat them. Over a camp fire wrapped in wild mint or skinned and pan fried at home. We should have filleted them for pan frying but instead steaked them with bone in. Too much bone . Over the camp fire the slime simply cooks off with the crackled skin. The meat was a bit earthy tasting but delicious. I learned as an adult fly-fisherman cooking brown trout in particular that to avoid the muddy taste you either fillet before cooking or you dry bake. If you wet cook them with the skin on that is where the muddy taste comes from and it pervades the flesh.

also with browns (one of my favourite table fish) bleed,gut n gill ASAP and dont forget to remove all of the blood/kidney line along sharpside of gut cavity...the black bit up in against spine.....and I mean all of it,teaspoon works well,blade of spinner at a pinch,or a knife if really have nothing else.... same goes for kawhawai ...