Book Review: The Complete Wild Game Cookbook

 A comprehensive and fascinating cookbook on preparing sublime game dishes.

This enticing and informative cookbook explains, from forest to table, how to make the most of wild game. Absorbing and engaging, it is not only full of information about game birds and animals but also introduces you to several wild plants that pair especially well with the suggested dishes, and includes recipes for broths, gravies, marinades and glazes.

In addition to the 150+ mouth-watering recipes, it features tips on preparing and cooking game, and details on the different species available throughout North America. You’ll also learn how to use the flesh and giblets of game, as well as wine-pairing suggestions, information on the various cuts of meat and general terms used in butchery.

This valuable primer is perfect for anyone who already includes game in their diet and for home cooks who are just discovering wild game for the first time.

With the advice in this wide-ranging book, you’ll rediscover the taste of nature on your dinner plate.

The Complete Wild Game Cookbook can be purchased from major online retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Target.

JEAN-PAUL GRAPPE  had a long and prolific career. He has been the chef and owner of four major restaurants and has also taught for 22 years at the Institute of Tourism and Hotel and Quebec. Jean-Paul has published numerous cookbooks, many of which have won awards.

Jean-Paul says The Complete Wild Game Cookbook is much more than just a book of delicious and unusual recipes. He says it is a comprehensive text that explains, from forest to table, how to make the most of what you hunt.

Robert Rose, Inc. based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and founded in 1995, is one of North America’s leading publishers of bestselling and award-winning cookbooks and health books designed to guide, inform, advise, and do everything possible to make your life easier. Our books contain an abundance of full-color photographs, important diet and nutritional guides, accessible charts and tables, handy and delicious meal plans, practical make-ahead meal ideas, and easy-to-understand step-by-step instructions.

Our Thoughts

Seriously, I just want to hug this guy, Jean-Paul.  We eat venison as our main meat and have been exploring other wild game during the appropriate hunting seasons.  Generally, when I do a search for wild game recipes, all I can find are the same basic recipes over and over that call for commercial sauces or spice blends - or a whole lot of nightshade food ingredients.  The whole reason we've turned to eating wild game is because of our son's special dietary needs, so all those commercial spice blends and sauces (and especially nightshades!!) are out because of the ingredients they contain. What this means is, basically I've been on my own for creating new wild game recipes for my own cookbook(s). And I've come up with some that are actually pretty close to ones in The Complete Wild Game Cookbook!

The first one I tried was the Venison Tartlets with Wild Herb Emulsion.  I had to substitute a few ingredients like the pastry, potato starch, and cow-dairy items, but the resulting venison tartlets turned out great (and delicious!) - big thumbs up from the hubby!  I used up the very last of our venison stash with this one so I'm happy it turned out so well!

Venison tartlets fresh out of the oven!

Plated, with the Wild Herb Emulsion.

The next one I tried was the Wild Boar Chops with Currants and Sauerkraut Marinated in Cumin and Maple Syrup. This one is fairly close to a much simpler recipe I already have and love - but this really jazzed it up and was fabulous!!  I used pork steaks instead of wild boar chops since that's what I had on hand.  I had to skip the juniper berries - I actually meant to harvest some this year from up at our cabin . . . but sadly, they stayed behind.  I'll harvest some next year - there are plenty of recipes in this book that call for them and I've been looking forward to experimenting cooking with them.

The pork steaks still in the roasting pan.

This has been, out of all of my cookbooks, my most favorite one to read! When Jean-Paul says "the complete wild game cookbook" he's not kidding.  It is incredibly informative about a HUGE variety of wild game - from different species of birds all the way up to large animals - even seal! And not only that, but information on the animals themselves as well as gastronomy, structure and tenderness of meat, the effect of cooking on meat tenderness, and selecting the right cooking method - charts included!  Granted, the average person probably isn't going to have some of the ingredients readily on hand but with enough research good substitutes can be used, or the exact ingredients purchased from specialty shops. 

At the time of this writing, we are patiently waiting for this hunting season's deer to be processed at our local butcher shop and I cannot wait to try more of the recipes in this cookbook!

Overall, I cannot say enough good things about The Complete Wild Game Cookbook and am so glad it's a part of my kitchen!