Snipe Recipes

Snipe at Dawn - Aiden Lassell Ripley (1986-1969)

Dan on the Rock asked about cooking and eating snipe.  As snipe are small birds - it takes more than a few of them to provide a real meal.  I combined the two I killed recently with a single dove to make some tapas before a more substantial meal of grouse in blackberry/pepper sauce.   After a long day in the field, the expedience of just breasting the birds out seems to be the way to go.  If you have more time, a plucked and roasted bird is a perhaps more fitting way to prepare them.  If you're short of snipe recipes, they can always be cooked in the same way as woodcock, though woodcock may provide slightly more meat.  The first game birds I ever managed to kill were woodcock near Williamsburg Virginia.

Snipe and dove breast tapas.
 

Sauteed Snipe Breast on Toasted Baguette RoundsIngredients: As many snipe breasts as you can muster; butter; salt, freshly ground pepper and a medium hot chili powder; rounds cut from a baguette; and (optionally) a few drops of truffle oil.Method: Breast out the birds. Salt and pepper the breasts and sprinkle on a dash of chili powder. I use Fernandez Chilie Molido Puro which is available in my Safeway store in 7 oz. bags. Slice the baguette into thin rounds - about 1/4". Melt a generous portion of butter in a frying pan, add a drop or two of truffle oil and then dip the bread into the butter and place them on a plate in a warm oven.  Add the breasts to the butter and brown them on both sides until medium rare.  Place them on the toast and enjoy with a favorite glass of wine.  A dry white or a light red like a Pinot Noir goes well.

There is a nice web site devoted to snipe hunting. They have a  list of recipes including the old standby, snipe wrapped in bacon.  Also a favorite way of mine to cook dove - wrap a small piece of jalapeno in the breast and then wrap the breast with bacon - grill until the bacon is nicely browned.  Hank Shaw at Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook has done some nice writing about snipe. He has a somewhat elaborate recipe and a plainer one too.   The Derrydale Game Cookbook by L. P. Gouy lists 24 recipes for woodcock and any could be used for snipe as well.

Morning snipe, afternoon grouse.

You may be shooting too quickly on snipe.  If memory serves, an old snipe hunter explained, "First they zig, and then they zag, then they shit, and after that they straighten out and you shoot 'em."  I spent many happy hours snipe hunting on the flats of the Skagit, but unfortunately I didn't know this technique. -- Personal correspondence from Gerry Cox

A brace of snipe on the counter.

Went after snipe on Sunday morning and grouse in the afternoon with my son who was visiting from Portland.  I can't , nay won't, say exactly where we hunted the snipe. Look for marshy country and cross your fingers that they are in.   I killed the first snipe on the first flush with one shot from the right barrel on Sidley.  I'd rather not say how many shells were expended by both of us before Garrett managed to drop the second one.  Once again, the open right barrel on the Sidley proved it's worth.

Two snipe in the field with the 20GA boxlock.

In the afternoon we drove up high to a spot I know for grouse.  Erdos was past tired after slogging through the muck all morning - but he hunted hard for us and we (Garrett) killed two birds.  On the first flush, two birds went up with Erdos on point, I hit one at some distance, feathers flew and the bird wobbled and glided into the forest.   Did not find him until we managed to flush him about an hour later from where he'd hidden in a tree.  Garrett dropped him.  Of course it is hard to know if it was the same bird, but we both thought it had to be.  We hunted more and flushed another four birds, one of which Garrett also managed to drop.

A brace of grouse taken up high.

Not a bad day at all, two snipe in the morning and two grouse in the afternoon.