what is your personal favorite partridge/grouse recipe?

[Andy]

What is your favorite recipe for ruffed grouse? (we call it partridge here but I gather that's not exactly correct)

I've got the breast already cut up and sitting in reconstituted buttermilk to marinate overnight, but looking to hear whatever tips anyone has on cooking them in general even if it wouldn't apply to this cooking session for me.

I'm a novice on this so general cooking tips for grouse or exact recipes are both appreciated.

I found a recipe for fried breaded buttermilk breasts that sounded too good to pass up. https://www.thefield.co.uk/food/cris...ta-salad-39793 I'm just doing the buttermilk meat part not the salad thing.

[Dave W.]

I am a fairly simple fellow and cook most foul the same way, roll the pieces in flour and fry them. The bigger birds, honkers, turkeys and such like, get baked.

Now that I think about it some, that is how I cook most meat, floured and fried. Fish get rolled in cornmeal before putting in the skillet.

Enjoy eating it, no matter how you cook it.

[hwilliam01]

We used to use grouse (and we called the partridge as well but they are really ruffed grouse) as camp food during deer season. We'd make a n easy dish by fricasseeing the bird breast in a frying pan with water and butter...let the water boil off and the butter will brown the meat when the water has boiled off. Then we'd mix a can of cream style corn and a can of cut up potatoes into the frying pan...it became a chicken corn chowder of sorts. pretty tasty and pretty simple.

[GhostHawk]

Been a few years, but my favorite was always a wild game stew. Start with a squirrel, add rabbit, grouse, venison chops. Braise them both sides, do a standard tomatoe rou which makes a rich brown gravy. Cook it low and slow until the meat starts falling off the bones. Serve over rice or mashed Taters. With a veg or salad on the side. Made for some mighty fine eating. Pigeon and waterfowl are also good this way.

[Andy]

Thanks for the ideas guys, I ended up dipping the strips in egg then breadcrumbs and frying in shallow level of oil in a pan, turned out really nice. Crispy and flavorful.

[square butte]

My favorite - Wrap in bacon and oven roast at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes. You can cook with potatoes if you cut them up small. Potatoes will take longer than the bird. Start the earlier then put the bird on top when the potatoes are half done. The bacon will benefit the spuds underneath

[Geezer in NH]

My favorite way is my Grandmother's way. Large bean pot of soldier beans, with fat back Maine style same as pea beans but better, take the cleaned partridge [ruffled grouse for purists] cut into halves push down into the beans. Her pot could take 3-4 pat's. Bake as usual when done and before serving take out the bones then serve.

Supper on Saturdays at camp was always the solider beans and whatever had been shot partridge, rabbit duck, woodcock etc. Fatback the staple when nothing was bagged.

Gram was born in Woodland ME 1892, she learned from her mother in Eastport ME at the pleasant point res.

[bdicki]

My wife makes a good pot pie with grouse or pheasant.

[dale2242]

My wife cooks grouse breast 2 different ways.
1. Cut into small chunks, marinated, and made into stir fry.
2. Tenderized and pan fried with Panko.

Very tasty either way...dale

[GhostHawk]

One of my more favored memories is of a morning spent grouse hunting. Started off on sharptails and moved on to ruffed.
About 11 am we moved up into a "Pine island". The guys wanted to keep hunting, but we were limited out. So I said lets do it like this. You guys scatter and go walk the trails for an hour and a half. Leave the birds and the vehicles here. I went digging into the back of my truck and found my goodies box.

Pulled out my 14" cast griddle with 1" sides, 2 lbs of thick cut bacon, built a fire and started frying bacon. Meantime I got out the bread, paper plates, paper towels, cleaned a couple grouse. Dusted each breast with flour, hit em with salt and pepper. When I saw the guys headed back the grouse hit the pan.

Fresh bread, slices of good bacon, and a grouse breast floured and fried. Good clean pine scented air, good food, good companions.

It was a very good morning.

And they had found a couple more birds so we were still limited out. So we split up the birds and called it a day.
I won't say it was the best I ever had, but it did not suck, was far from the worst.

[MaryB]

We always did pheasant in a crock pot with cream of mushroom soup. Cooked until it would shred then served over wild rice...

[BMW Rider]

It's all good. But for me, cook same at teal and venison tenderloin: dredge in flour, fry in butter with a pinch of salt and pepper. Let the flavor of the game come through. No complaints yet.

[gwpercle]

Dredge serving sized pieces in seasoned flour , lightly brown pieces in bacon grease , lard or oil , remove browned pieces to a warm platter and reserve . Add enough of the leftover seasoned flour to the oil to make a good roux and brown the flour, when the roux is nicely brown , add a chopped onion and cook until clear add stock or water to make a brown gravy.
Return meat to pan and let simmer on low while you make a pot of rice , about 20 minutes or so .
Serve meat with gravy over rice..... Good way to fix most anything that walks , runs or flies .

I'm having meat and gravy tonight for supper...can't wait !
Gary

[Reverend Al]

Out here in Western BC we have "ruffies", Blue Grouse (Dusky Grouse), Sharptails, and Spruce Grouse. Blues are much bigger birds and I've usually roasted them whole with a pan full of mixed veggies. Ruffies (and Sharpies) tend to be fairly small in our neck of the woods so I've usually diced them up, added Campbell's "Golden Mushroom" soup, and available veggies (onions, garlic, and sometimes rice) and then topped them off with a pastry topping to make a pot pie.

Spruce grouse like to eat spruce buds and they tend to get a horribly strong pine flavour in the meat so the old saying about cooking Spruce grouse is to dice up the grouse, put it into a cast iron frying pan, add a handful of gravel, cook until the grouse is done, then throw out the grouse and eat the gravel since it tastes better!

Doesn't matter how you cook them, whenever you cook wild game birds in camp while you're out hunting they always tasted better!

[Lance Boyle]

The only way I cook grouse Is took take the breast and lay it over apple stuffing. Butter the breast and salt and pepper it.

Bake until browned.

[Drm50]

My old man was a grouse hunting nut. He kept 3 bird dogs trained on grouse. He insisted grouse to be plucked.
Then my gramma would make stuffing of rye bread crumbs, pork sausag and mushrooms as well as spices. It stretched out a grouse so that one would do you. Dad would go nuts hunting with some guys who ripped breast out in the field and threw the rest away. Gram fixed pheasant the same way. We always had plenty of pheasant in season but never had surplus grouse. Ohio had 3 bird limit.

[brewer12345]

I cut them up like a chicken, fray a few pieces of bacon diced, pull the bacon bits and leave the fat, brown the grouse pieces in the fat. Pull the grouse pieces and saute shallots and mushrooms until soft. Put the grouse and bacon bits back in the pan, add some beer (brown ale is best), some thyme, salt, pepper and maybe a bay leaf, simmer til tender.