Snipe cooked to perfection.

Anyone that has been game shooting will know that the snipe is one fast bird, only a few inches tall. As a wading bird it spends it's time wading in marshes and bogs foraging for food. When flushed it corkscrews up into the air at a fair ol' rate and it goes without saying that you have to be pretty damn quick off the mark to get your gun up in time and quick to react to the changes in direction.

Snipe season here in the UK are August 12th to Jan 31st inclusive. So this was the first and last one in the season for me and proudly so. Fortunately another gun also got a snipe on the last drive and as he had not cooked one before he handed his to me and asked for a recipe (thanks for that one jonny) hence the writeup of one tasty meal.

I had snipe three ways and enjoyed every one of them.

So what are the three ways? Well for a start there is roasting, then with another bird I used the breasts and pan fried them. Finally there's the entrails, yes you heard right. Some people I have spoke to tend to roast their birds for 15 mins in a high oven and then remove the entrails and spread them on toast. Not quite how I did it but here's how it all went down.

Preparation
If you haven't already soaked your wild rice then setting it off at the start is a good idea as un-soaked wild rice takes around 40 mins to cook. Fortunately I was prepared and had soaked mine for 4 hours prior so only 20 mins were needed.

The usual prep is needed for a snipe, plucking feathers, removing feet, removing the head, clipping the wings. Obviously you only need to take the feathers off the breast when you only want the breast meat. If you don't want to eat the entrails (internal organs) then you can just draw the bird fully, however if you want the entrails then you need to pop your fingers into the chest cavity and remove the gizzard which is the hard gritty sack.

Roast snipe
Snipe being a small bird takes no cooking at all. To roast a snipe simply put the bird into an oven-proof dish with a little water in the bottom and rub it with butter. Pre-heat the oven to as hot as it will go.

If the legs keep dropping down I find that cutting the beak off works as as a pretty good skewer to thread between the legs as you can see in the picture.

I took the entrails out of mine but it is well known to leave them in the bird and then scrape them out onto toast when removing from the oven.

Pop the bird into the oven for 10 to 15 mins.

Pan fried snipe breasts
Once you have removed the breasts the cooking time for these in a fairly hot pan is about two minutes each side if you like them nice and pink. I did these in a little butter with some salt and pepper.

Pan fried snipe entrails
Fir the entrails I waited until just as the breasts were about to finish, popped the breasts in with the bird for the final minute and put the entrails into the pan and broke them down as they cooked with a fork. When finished remove them from the pan and ensure they are broken down and spread them onto some toast.


To accompany
I prepared a bed of 50/50 wild rice and long grain rice, boiled and then just as the snipe entrails were about to finish I popped some chopped chestnut mushrooms into the pan to soak up the juices, popped in the drained rice  which had been boiling all the time and a little of the water and let that cook while I prepared the snipe.

So with a few blobs of entrails on the toast I popped a breast on top of each, removed the rice from the pan to make a base and placed the toast and breasts on the side. Removed the roasted bird from the oven and placed that on the middle. Finally to finish off as it is such a rich little bird I drizzled a little balsamic reduction over the breasts.

As small as they look it is a rich dish and with the healthy addition of rice it was quite filling.

A very rewarding dish from start to finish!!