Woodcock are strange birds. Their brains are below their eyes, they have a funny dance, and their breast meat is red, and leg meat white. They remind me of rail birds, but chunkier with a woodland-hermit vibe. Regardless, I think they’re pretty neat. 

I can count on one hand how many times I’ve set out to try and hunt a woodcock. Most of those times, I walked miles without a dog and without ever flushing a bird. One of those times, I was hunting with two phenomenal dogs. We flushed nearly 20 birds in a morning, our shooting was pathetic, and we came home empty handed.  

Recently, I went bear hunting with a good friend in Maryland. The bears were scarce, so we took a morning off from climbing in and out of creek bottoms and walked some covers with 20 gauges instead. The goal was to shoot two woodcock. I was skeptical about our odds, given we didn't have a dog, but I was wrong to have any doubt. A short mile loop through some beautiful cover and we had two birds in the vest.

I’d never had woodcock before, so I figured, what better way to eat these birds than to baste them in some aromatic butter? I smashed some roasted garlic into melted butter and added a bunch of fresh rosemary, then proceeded to baste the plucked birds until the legs were cooked through (about 155F) and the breast was barely at 130F. I let the birds rest while I finished up some polenta, caramelized onions, and sauteed some morels and maitake mushrooms with the garlic infused butter and some demi glace.

These are the first woodcock I’ve ever shot, and hopefully they won't be the last.

Butter Basted Woodcock

Ingredients:

Woodcock, plucked

~½ cup of butter

2-3 tbsp roasted garlic

3 4-6” sprigs of rosemary

Method:

Rub the woodcock with olive oil, and season generously with salt.

Melt the butter over medium heat, and add in the roasted garlic and rosemary. When the butter just starts to sizzle, place the seasoned bird in the pan with the butter, breast side up. Tilt the pan so the melted butter puddles to one side and move the pan so that the heat is under the puddle of butter. Baste the bird with the hot butter for 4-5 minutes until the skin is golden brown and the internal temperature of the breast is about 130-135F and the legs are 150-155F. 

Remove the bird from the pan and allow it to rest.

Serve over your preferred starch and whatever you see fit. I made some creamy polenta with a bunch of parmesan, caramelized onions, and sauteed some morels and maitake, finishing them with demi glace.