Smoke + Salt with Blaine

Written by Blaine Limpus
Photography by Melanie Limpus

I’m no culinary expert; I’m just a guy that loves to create ridiculous dishes that clash hard and sometimes, just sometimes, come together in a melodious blend of flavors.

Southern cuisine mixed with the foundations of French technique is the base layer of my style in the kitchen. Is there anything more renowned, refined, and celebrated than French cuisine? The attention to detail, working with the best, locally-sourced ingredient, and cooking it perfectly makes my heart swim. There is no need for pomp or frills. Take the best ingredient and give it proper justice by preparing it correctly. It's honestly a brilliant way to look at cuisine. Simple food done right. Sound familiar?

Take my love for French and Southern cuisine and combine it with a love for locally-sourced food in this high desert land that we all love so fondly. We live in the land of cowboys, French fur traders, and remarkable Native Americans that have more knowledge of local edibles than most Michelin starred chefs can imagine. Give me wild game, the three sisters (beans, corn, and squash), and a French sauce. Give me beef! After all, we live in cattle country - why not source from our own backyard and support local ranchers?

Together we will crack open this culinary skull of mine, along with other locals and some of my personal heroes to hopefully find some wild, adventurous dishes that otherwise may have never crossed your mind. Remember three things: cook in season, light really big fires, and enjoy the process. Oh, and drink lots of wine while cooking… So four things, remember four things.

Pheasant with “Hoecakes” and Ember-Roasted Winter Squash

This dish is for all the bird hunters out there, but if you can’t get your hands on a prized pheasant, then we can always substitute one of those delicious yard birds in its place. I have an obsession with poultry, so it seemed fitting to launch this column with a bird dish.

This dish is prepared via live-fire cooking. I hope you find fire is less intimidating than we were all taught to believe. Please know the dishes I will present are using ingredients that I enjoy and hope you learn to love as well, but mainly these dishes are concepts. They don’t need to be followed exactly, but will hopefully help more people follow their own culinary journey. If you don’t have the ability to cook this dish over a fire in your backyard, you can do it on your grill, or find a campsite that has fire grates. Be creative and enjoy!

For the Pheasant:

1 whole pheasant (or a whole chicken)
8 cups water
5-7 juniper berries (crushed, for brine)
⅓ - ½ cup salt (for brine)
¼ cup maple syrup (plus 2 tablespoons for basting)
½ lemon (for basting)
1 sprig fresh rosemary (please use fresh herbs and not that chalky stuff in those dust-ridden jars) 

            For the “Hoecakes”:

2 cups cornmeal (Preferably coarse)
1 egg, lightly beaten
½  teaspoon baking soda
½  teaspoon baking powder
Salt to taste (I use about a teaspoon)
1 ½ cups of buttermilk (full-fat preferably)

For the Squash:

1 winter squash like Acorn, Delicata, or Red Kabocha (branch out and try something other than Butternut, unless that's all you can get) 

            Tools needed:

            Argentine iron grill (fire cooking grate)
Cast iron flat top griddle 

Directions:

1)    Pheasants are really lean birds and need help locking in that moisture. So please, I beg you, brine your bird for 24 hours. In a large pot, add the water, juniper berries, maple syrup, and salt. Heat over medium high until the salt dissolves. Set aside and let the brine come to room temperature. Once cooled, submerge that yummy bird, cover, and let the sodium begin working its magic.

2)    After 24 hours of brine, go outside and build a big ol’ fire. Once you get a good fire roaring, it’s best to let the coals begin to form. Don’t cook the entire time over a direct flame or you will end up with a black, charred, hockey puck! Think of it the same way you would a charcoal grill. Different zones are required. One zone is the flame itself where you continually add more wood, the second zone is where the hottest coals are located, and the third zone is the coolest spot in the pit.

3)    While that fire is roaring and coals are forming, prep the cornmeal. Take two bowls and combine the dry ingredients in one (cornmeal, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) and the wet ingredients in the other (egg, buttermilk, and lard/tallow). Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient bowl while whisking, but don’t over whisk. We don’t want to aerate the batter and still want some texture. Set this aside for now.

4)    When the coals are glowing white hot and your zones are built out, it’s time to start cooking. Start with the squash (or go to step 5 if cooking a chicken.) Coat the exterior of the squash with olive oil and wiggle it down in the coals and ash between zones two and three to cook it slowly. The key to live-fire cooking is simply paying attention to the fire and responding to her movements. If it looks like the squash is in a hot zone, slide it over. Remember the fourth rule? Drink wine and enjoy family and friends while hanging around the fire. Depending on the size of squash, it should be fully cooked within an hour, but check the tenderness by piercing with a knife. When the knife slices through easily, the squash is done.

5)    While the squash is cooking in the coals, prepare the pheasant. (Or if you are substituting a chicken for this recipe, do this before the squash as a chicken is much larger than a pheasant and needs more time to cook.) Pheasants are small and can cook quickly so you don’t need a lot of time, especially with the high heat of fire. Using  kitchen shears, cut the bird open spatchcock-style. Spatchcock is a simple and beautiful method that flattens poultry and allows it to cook quickly and evenly. Place the bird breast-side down and cut from tail to neck along the spine to remove the backbone. Once it’s open, season with salt and pepper. Put it skin-side down over zone two and let the skin begin to get crispy. Squeeze half a lemon into a bowl and mix with two tablespoons of maple syrup to create a baste. Once the skin is golden brown and crispy, flip it over and finish it off in zone three, basting as needed. When the bird hits an internal temperature 165 degrees, it’s ready!

6)    Lastly, heat up the flat top to get ready for the hoecakes. This is just like making a pancake. Melt butter onto the flat top and add the batter. Flip the cakes when the bubbles start to form on the top and the edges look dry and set.

7)    Make a handful of hoecakes, carve up that bird, and serve with some coal-roasted winter squash! Serve with your favorite sauce or just enjoy the simplistic nature of smoke, char, and salt.