Really, it's too ridiculous not to share, so I've created a video series called "Hanksperiments." You can see the entire playlist here, and a recent one below. Enjoy!
© Holly A. Heyser 2017
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Video series: Hanksperiments
My house is littered with the unusual: A truly impressive accumulation of Hank's odd projects in various states of progress. Or maybe these things are just detritus that he left on our beleaguered kitchen table instead of tossing them. Sometimes they're both.
Really, it's too ridiculous not to share, so I've created a video series called "Hanksperiments." You can see the entire playlist here, and a recent one below. Enjoy!
© Holly A. Heyser 2017
Really, it's too ridiculous not to share, so I've created a video series called "Hanksperiments." You can see the entire playlist here, and a recent one below. Enjoy!
© Holly A. Heyser 2017
Monday, May 8, 2017
Video: Hanksperiments, Episode 1 - Wanna see anchovies fly?
When your boyfriend makes a living pushing the boundaries of what normal people do with wild food, you end up with a LOT of weird stuff going on around the house. This is what happened when he came home from a halibut fishing trip this weekend with more bait than halibut.
Welcome to my world!
© Holly A. Heyser 2017
Welcome to my world!
© Holly A. Heyser 2017
Monday, March 6, 2017
VIDEO - Fillet & gut: a super-clean way to clean and break down your birds
There are many legitimate ways to clean your gamebirds, but I have developed a method I like a LOT: fillet & gut. It's a great way to work cleanly, get all you can out of a bird, and maximize how much meat and fat you get off of it.
The short version is that I pluck a bird whole, then fillet it off the carcass. Then I separate breast, leg and wing on the meat side so I can see exactly where the muscle groups begin and end, as opposed to guessing while cutting each carcass off the whole bird. This is also cool because you're removing those parts before gutting the bird, and gutting is when you're mostly likely to puncture intestines and get poop on your meat. This is not the end of the world, of course - a good rinse will make everything fine again. But still, better to be clean from the start.
The next cool thing is when you've taken all the meat off the carcass, you can pull off the breast plate like a lid and all the wobbly bits - heart, liver, gizzard - are waiting for you on top of the bird, no reaching up into the darkness and grabbing.
Here's the video that shows this process in detail. It's not short - just under 10 minutes - but if you're looking for a clean way to maximize your birds, this is it! And there's an FAQ below the video.
And here's an FAQ:
Q: Why not just cook the bird whole? A: Breast meat needs to be cooked hot and fast, and medium rare like a steak, and legs and wings need to be cooked slowly to break down the meat, which can be tough. If you cook the whole bird, you're either going to overcook the breast or undercook the legs and wings.
Q: Why did you save the feet? A: You can throw them into stock! Just like pig feet, which can be used for the same purpose, they contain collagen that makes your stock silkier.
Q: That duck looked easy to work with - why? A: Two things: First is after plucking it, I put it in the fridge overnight. It's much easier to slice a cold duck, especially if it has a lot of fat, which can turn your fingers greasy. The second is that he was a perfect specimen with very little shot damage to the body. The reality is that birds killed with a shotgun will be messier, especially if shot hits the guts.
Q: What do you use duck fat for? A: It's a great substitute for butter or cooking oil in many recipes. When I pan-sear duck breasts (my favorite treatment), I start with a bit of duck fat in the pan. I'll throw duck fat into the rice cooker too.
Q: If I break the gall bladder, will it ruin the meat? A: Nope. Just rinse whatever that nasty juice touched. If it still smells bad to you, pat it dry and put it on a paper towel in a covered container in the fridge and check it the next day. I find a lot of smells that are present during cleaning disappear with a little time.
Q: What do you do with all the parts after breaking it down? A: I rinse and pat dry everything then put the parts on paper towels in plastic containers and let them sit in the fridge for 2-3 days, changing the paper towels once or twice a day. This brings out extra moisture and the meat ages just a bit, condensing flavors. Then I vacuum seal and freeze anything I'm not going to eat within one week of the day I shot the bird.
© Holly A. Heyser 2017
The short version is that I pluck a bird whole, then fillet it off the carcass. Then I separate breast, leg and wing on the meat side so I can see exactly where the muscle groups begin and end, as opposed to guessing while cutting each carcass off the whole bird. This is also cool because you're removing those parts before gutting the bird, and gutting is when you're mostly likely to puncture intestines and get poop on your meat. This is not the end of the world, of course - a good rinse will make everything fine again. But still, better to be clean from the start.
The next cool thing is when you've taken all the meat off the carcass, you can pull off the breast plate like a lid and all the wobbly bits - heart, liver, gizzard - are waiting for you on top of the bird, no reaching up into the darkness and grabbing.
Here's the video that shows this process in detail. It's not short - just under 10 minutes - but if you're looking for a clean way to maximize your birds, this is it! And there's an FAQ below the video.
And here's an FAQ:
Q: Why not just cook the bird whole? A: Breast meat needs to be cooked hot and fast, and medium rare like a steak, and legs and wings need to be cooked slowly to break down the meat, which can be tough. If you cook the whole bird, you're either going to overcook the breast or undercook the legs and wings.
Q: Why did you save the feet? A: You can throw them into stock! Just like pig feet, which can be used for the same purpose, they contain collagen that makes your stock silkier.
Q: That duck looked easy to work with - why? A: Two things: First is after plucking it, I put it in the fridge overnight. It's much easier to slice a cold duck, especially if it has a lot of fat, which can turn your fingers greasy. The second is that he was a perfect specimen with very little shot damage to the body. The reality is that birds killed with a shotgun will be messier, especially if shot hits the guts.
Q: What do you use duck fat for? A: It's a great substitute for butter or cooking oil in many recipes. When I pan-sear duck breasts (my favorite treatment), I start with a bit of duck fat in the pan. I'll throw duck fat into the rice cooker too.
Q: If I break the gall bladder, will it ruin the meat? A: Nope. Just rinse whatever that nasty juice touched. If it still smells bad to you, pat it dry and put it on a paper towel in a covered container in the fridge and check it the next day. I find a lot of smells that are present during cleaning disappear with a little time.
Q: What do you do with all the parts after breaking it down? A: I rinse and pat dry everything then put the parts on paper towels in plastic containers and let them sit in the fridge for 2-3 days, changing the paper towels once or twice a day. This brings out extra moisture and the meat ages just a bit, condensing flavors. Then I vacuum seal and freeze anything I'm not going to eat within one week of the day I shot the bird.
© Holly A. Heyser 2017
Monday, November 30, 2015
Video: How to render duck fat
At long last, I've finally made the video duck hunters have been asking for: How to render duck fat!
The process is really easy, and it gives you a jar of duck flavor that will last long after you've rid the freezer of your last bird of the season.
So next time you get a delicious, fat bird, save the bits of fat you might otherwise throw in the trash, and try this.
© Holly A. Heyser 2015
The process is really easy, and it gives you a jar of duck flavor that will last long after you've rid the freezer of your last bird of the season.
So next time you get a delicious, fat bird, save the bits of fat you might otherwise throw in the trash, and try this.
© Holly A. Heyser 2015
Monday, May 25, 2015
Resurrected: My photography website
I'm very excited to unveil my new photography website - Holly Heyser Photography.
My old food photography website shut down a couple weeks ago because the hosting company, BluDomain, didn't send me a bill, ignored multiple emails I sent asking them for a bill, then shut my site down because I didn't pay the bill. Brilliant!
This happened at a pretty difficult time. Hank and I were in the middle of a protracted search for our missing cat, which thankfully ended this morning after 37 tortured days, and I was trying to finish producing an especially challenging issue of California Waterfowl Magazine (that's over now too).
As often happens, the website problem turned out to be for the best. After evaluating my options, I realized the path forward was to consolidate my food photography website, which has always functioned just as an online portfolio, with my other photography website, which has been my vehicle for selling prints of my feather photos and mushroom photos.
The "new" combined site is hosted by SmugMug, which has always had outstanding customer service for both me and for the people who purchase my photos: Prints from my site are produced by Bay Photo in Santa Cruz, and both the quality of prints and the absolutely bullet-proof packaging are outstanding. (Hat tip to my favorite waterfowl photographer, Fred Greenslade, who turned me on to SmugMug.)
As a result of this consolidation, you can now purchase my food photos, if you want to have some mouth-watering stuff hanging on your walls. Hey, ya never know.
So, please feel free to take a look around - dare I say feast your eyes on? - the new site. Its address is photo.hollyheyser.com. You can leave comments on any photos you like, and share them with any of your friends who are into food, feathers or mushrooms.
And ants. Did I mention ants?
© Holly A. Heyser 2015
My old food photography website shut down a couple weeks ago because the hosting company, BluDomain, didn't send me a bill, ignored multiple emails I sent asking them for a bill, then shut my site down because I didn't pay the bill. Brilliant!
This happened at a pretty difficult time. Hank and I were in the middle of a protracted search for our missing cat, which thankfully ended this morning after 37 tortured days, and I was trying to finish producing an especially challenging issue of California Waterfowl Magazine (that's over now too).
The "new" combined site is hosted by SmugMug, which has always had outstanding customer service for both me and for the people who purchase my photos: Prints from my site are produced by Bay Photo in Santa Cruz, and both the quality of prints and the absolutely bullet-proof packaging are outstanding. (Hat tip to my favorite waterfowl photographer, Fred Greenslade, who turned me on to SmugMug.)
As a result of this consolidation, you can now purchase my food photos, if you want to have some mouth-watering stuff hanging on your walls. Hey, ya never know.
So, please feel free to take a look around - dare I say feast your eyes on? - the new site. Its address is photo.hollyheyser.com. You can leave comments on any photos you like, and share them with any of your friends who are into food, feathers or mushrooms.
And ants. Did I mention ants?
© Holly A. Heyser 2015
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Two new videos: how to fillet a duck, and how to cook a duck fillet or duck breast
I'm obsessed with using as many parts as possible from the birds I kill, so I came up with a filleting method earlier this year that uses ALL of the meat and skin, and is easy to eat, too. The first video shows you how to cut a duck into two boneless fillets, and the second shows you how to cook those fillets (though, conveniently, the technique is the same for cooking breasts alone).
If you watched the PBS Food/Original Fare video in which I took a newbie duck hunting then cooked up a pintail for her, this is the method I used.
Enjoy!
© Holly A. Heyser 2013
If you watched the PBS Food/Original Fare video in which I took a newbie duck hunting then cooked up a pintail for her, this is the method I used.
Enjoy!
© Holly A. Heyser 2013
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Taking a newbie/foodie on her first duck hunt
As a woman who didn't take up hunting until the age of 41, I love helping fellow adults - especially women - go out and get their first hunting experiences. In the case of Kelly Cox, we shared her first duck hunt in front of a camera.
Kelly is the creator of Original Fare, a PBS Food video series, and as part of the series, she decided this year to try hunting for her food. Check out the video on our hunt, then keep scrolling - I'll have a bit more to say.
OK, so much to say, but the first thing is that a new survey this year finally validated what I've been saying for a few years now: "(O)btaining meat is an increasingly important motivation among American hunters to go afield. While there are several reasons for this growth in the segment of hunters who engage in hunting for utilitarian reasons, several of Responsive Management's new studies make clear that the trend is widespread and unmistakable."
Translation: People want high quality meat, and they're willing to hunt for it.
Kelly - a former vegetarian who still shuns factory-farmed meat - definitely falls into that category, and she's part of a group of people whom hunters should do everything possible to welcome into the fold. It was really exciting to be in a video that I knew was going to reach an audience that cares a LOT about where its food comes from, but isn't necessarily familiar with hunting. Opportunity!
Now, onto the details: Kelly was a fantastic shot. I think she hit her first eight or nine clays in that first session with Dale Tate. And the bird she got was the first bird she shot at. Woot!
Next: She fell in love with the marsh, despite what you can't see in the video: that a couple assholes set up really close to us and seriously marred our hunt. She took that in stride and focused on what so many of us love: the beauty of the birds that live in that world so few people see up close.
Next: A few days before the hunt, she mentioned that I'd be cooking something. I'm not sure why it hadn't occurred to me - it is a food show - but I was a bit of a deer in the headlights. I'm not the star of my kitchen; Hank is! But Hank was on the road, promoting his new cookbook (with photos by me), Duck, Duck, Goose
, so this was all on me. Gulp.
I quickly realized, though, that one of my favorite ways to eat duck is simply salting it, pan searing it, slicing it up, and maybe topping it with a squirt of lemon juice and some pepper. I can do that!
So I did, and the result was delicious. It didn't hurt that I had a couple pintails on hand, so Kelly and cinematographer Lucas Longacre's first taste of wild duck was as good as it gets.
We could barely speak as we ate.
Finally: When you surrender your actions to others, whether they're filmmakers, writers or photographers, you never know what you're going to get. In this case, I have to say what they produced is completely accurate - the only error in it is my own, and it's worth noting here:
When I was cooking, I said the biggest mistake people make cooking duck is not cooking it long enough. What I meant was that's the big mistake when they're pan searing duck, where you never seem to trust yourself to let it go long enough. For the most part, people tend to overcook duck, which is the worst thing you can do to a duck breast. My bad! As the politicians say, I misspoke.
All in all, this was a thoroughly wonderful experience. Kelly and Lucas are welcome in my home and my duck blind (such as it is) any time.
© Holly A. Heyser 2013
Kelly is the creator of Original Fare, a PBS Food video series, and as part of the series, she decided this year to try hunting for her food. Check out the video on our hunt, then keep scrolling - I'll have a bit more to say.
OK, so much to say, but the first thing is that a new survey this year finally validated what I've been saying for a few years now: "(O)btaining meat is an increasingly important motivation among American hunters to go afield. While there are several reasons for this growth in the segment of hunters who engage in hunting for utilitarian reasons, several of Responsive Management's new studies make clear that the trend is widespread and unmistakable."
Translation: People want high quality meat, and they're willing to hunt for it.
Kelly - a former vegetarian who still shuns factory-farmed meat - definitely falls into that category, and she's part of a group of people whom hunters should do everything possible to welcome into the fold. It was really exciting to be in a video that I knew was going to reach an audience that cares a LOT about where its food comes from, but isn't necessarily familiar with hunting. Opportunity!
Now, onto the details: Kelly was a fantastic shot. I think she hit her first eight or nine clays in that first session with Dale Tate. And the bird she got was the first bird she shot at. Woot!
Next: She fell in love with the marsh, despite what you can't see in the video: that a couple assholes set up really close to us and seriously marred our hunt. She took that in stride and focused on what so many of us love: the beauty of the birds that live in that world so few people see up close.
Next: A few days before the hunt, she mentioned that I'd be cooking something. I'm not sure why it hadn't occurred to me - it is a food show - but I was a bit of a deer in the headlights. I'm not the star of my kitchen; Hank is! But Hank was on the road, promoting his new cookbook (with photos by me), Duck, Duck, Goose
, so this was all on me. Gulp.I quickly realized, though, that one of my favorite ways to eat duck is simply salting it, pan searing it, slicing it up, and maybe topping it with a squirt of lemon juice and some pepper. I can do that!
So I did, and the result was delicious. It didn't hurt that I had a couple pintails on hand, so Kelly and cinematographer Lucas Longacre's first taste of wild duck was as good as it gets.
We could barely speak as we ate.
Finally: When you surrender your actions to others, whether they're filmmakers, writers or photographers, you never know what you're going to get. In this case, I have to say what they produced is completely accurate - the only error in it is my own, and it's worth noting here:
When I was cooking, I said the biggest mistake people make cooking duck is not cooking it long enough. What I meant was that's the big mistake when they're pan searing duck, where you never seem to trust yourself to let it go long enough. For the most part, people tend to overcook duck, which is the worst thing you can do to a duck breast. My bad! As the politicians say, I misspoke.
All in all, this was a thoroughly wonderful experience. Kelly and Lucas are welcome in my home and my duck blind (such as it is) any time.
© Holly A. Heyser 2013
Friday, November 1, 2013
A post-meal grace for the first duck of the season: a column for Shotgun Life
Read all about it in my latest column for Shotgun Life.
© Holly A. Heyser 2013
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
My biggest photography project yet: Duck, Duck, Goose - the cookbook!
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Click here
to buy. |
(Ten Speed Press).As Hank Shaw's live-in food photographer, I've been doing photography for his James Beard Award-winning blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cook for years now. I also did most of the photography for his first book, Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast
(Rodale, 2011).But "Duck, Duck, Goose" is special to me for several reasons. First and foremost, waterfowling is my passion, and one of the primary reasons I started hunting ducks was how incredibly good they taste.
And on a more personally gratifying level: This book is 100 percent in color, unlike "Hunt, Gather, Cook." Every single image is mine, right down to the duck silhouette motif you'll see throughout the book. And Andrew Zimmern of the Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods" gave me a nice shout-out in his back-cover review of the book. Thanks, Andrew!
If you're not a hunter, this book still has plenty for you - Hank and I worked with both domestic and wild ducks. And if you are a hunter, this is an indispensable guide for getting the most out of your birds. Some of the dishes are super cheffy, but the book also devotes a lot of space to basic techniques that you'll appreciate even if you never try the high-wire stuff.
The recipes originate from all over the globe, so if you love ethnic food, you'll find lots of ethnicities represented here. And having eaten every single dish I photographed, I can tell you they're ridiculously delicious. Even though they sometimes got cold by the time I was done shooting them.
If you'd like to meet the master, Hank will be on book tour for the next several months, and most of his events are dinners at excellent restaurants with chefs the likes of Bryan Voltaggio and Anita Lo. These events are fun because you can get dinner and face time with Hank, not just hear a lecture and stand in line for an autograph. You can check out what cities he's visiting here.
Work prevents me from joining him on the whole tour, though I will go to a few stops with him, time permitting.
I hope you'll consider buying the book. If you do, enjoy!
© Holly A. Heyser 2013
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Copper River salmon - a story in the Sacramento Bee
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| This is a dish prepared by Chef Jeremy Storm of the Orca Adventure Lodge. Click here for the recipe. Photo © Holly A. Heyser |
A few pounds and 2,800 photos later (yes, literally), I gave birth to this big ole spread for the Sacramento Bee about the delights of eating Copper River salmon. I'm pretty excited that I got the words "orgiastic gluttony" into the first paragraph of the story.
Do I have your attention now? Awesome! Click on over and check it out. And if you'd like to see some of the photos that didn't make print, scroll on down.
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| This was the view from our campfire at the Orca Adventure Lodge in Cordova, Alaska. Those were bald eagles on the pilings, BTW. Saw LOTS of bald eagles up there. Photo © Holly A. Heyser |
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Captain Brian Rutzer, left, talks with food videographer Daniel Klein while we're out fishing for sockeye on Rutzer's gillnetter, Controller Bay. Can I just say that my Tokina 11-16mm lens
served me really well in tight quarters on this trip? Photo © Holly A. Heyser |
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| Mikal Berry is the owner of the Fishwives food truck based in Cordova, Alaska. Beautiful woman! You've got to check out her salmon chowder recipe on the SacBee site. Photo © Holly A. Heyser |
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| Can you think of a prettier backdrop for a food truck?
Photo © Holly A. Heyser
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| That's my boyfriend Hank Shaw setting the hook on the last salmon we caught that day - a pink. Epic fishing - you couldn't go more than a cast or two without getting a bite. Our guide was Ian Winder of the Orca Adventure Lodge. And BTW, Hank just posted a salmon recipe on his website this week. We've been eating LOTS of salmon. Photo © Holly A. Heyser |
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| Brian Wildrick, who owns Harborside Pizza, makes a couple mean salmon pizzas.
© Holly A. Heyser
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| These sockeye salmon are near the end of their lives, just chillin' and hanging out, waiting for the last act: spawning.
Photo © Holly A. Heyser
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| Food videographer Daniel Klein photographs the surreal glacial melt near the sockeye spawning beds.
© Holly A. Heyser
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