Pan-fried ptarmigan

As tradition built it

Pan-fried ptarmigan

The coated meat stands 10 to 15 minutes before frying.

Ingredients

• 1 ptarmigan, meat cut off the bones
• 1 egg, beaten
• about 20 Ritz or Club crackers
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• 1 to 2 tsp granulated garlic
• 1 to 2 tbsp butter

To serve

• to serve potatoes or rice, and vegetables

Method

1. Cut the meat off the bones and dip it in the beaten egg.
2. Crush the crackers in a zip bag and add the salt, pepper and garlic.
3. Add the meat and shake until it is coated. Leave it 10 to 15 minutes.
4. Melt the butter in a frying pan over a medium heat and fry the meat on both sides until it is cooked and the coating is golden.
5. Serve with potatoes or rice and vegetables.

Notes

Ptarmigan carries roughly twice the iron of caribou meat and is markedly leaner than chicken.

The recipe is Brian Person's, in the North Slope Borough's Traditional Foods Recipes.

What a modern chef changes

Grouse crown with a fine breadcrumb crust

Method

1. Ptarmigan is legally shootable in Scotland but this chapter's own sourcing research could not find a single UK retailer or game dealer actually selling it: substitute grouse, itself genuinely seasonal, fresh late August to early November.
2. Bone out a grouse crown and brine briefly.
3. Follow the traditional method closely: egg wash, then a cracker crust, but use a fine dry breadcrumb made from crushed water biscuits pulsed with a little dried thyme, pressed on rather than dredged, for a thinner, more even crust than the original's crushed-cracker method gives.
4. Rest, then shallow-fry in clarified butter, exactly as the tradition specifies, rather than switching to a neutral oil the source method never called for.