Cooking Sandhill Crane Breast

Garlic salt and tsp.

Cooking sandhill crane breast.

The older birds are as tough as shoe leather. Liberally coat breast in wild game rub ensuring meat is covered but rub is not caking off the breast. Mix all rub ingredients together thoroughly then on a plate brush olive oil on sandhill crane breast. Onion powder in a small bowl or cup.

Sandhillcranehunting wildeats fieldtotable sandhill crane is one of the best tasting game birds out there. The legs are relatively huge and full of tendons worse than any bird out there. Cook indirectly for 30 45 minutes until the internal temperature of the breast reaches 120 125 degrees. Grill on bbq using a flat screen style tray other wise the thinly sliced crane will fall on to coals.

Next put the breast on a pre heated grill and cook over high heat searing the breast for 2 3 minutes per side until rare to medium rare. Place the seasoned crane breasts on your soaked cedar planks and place them on the grill. I start out with the montreal steak seasoning and slap ya mama cajun seasoning. This pre meal entree goes very well with a fine bottle of your favorite beer.

Cooking the sandhill crane. Cook crane until nicely browned just as with all waterfowl do not over cook as meat is thin it will cook very quickly depending on how hot your coals are. Roughly crush the peppercorns and rub them into the crane breast wrap in plastic wrap and let sit in the fridge for a few hours. Dry meat and cut into bite sized pieces.

Next i add about a quarter to half of the bottle of the allegro marinade depending how many crane breasts i have. Let them sit in the fridge for at least 3 hours or over night. Sear for 4 5 minutes on each side then transfer the breast to a baking sheet and put in the oven while you make the sauce about 8 to 10 minutes for medium rare. The breast meat is like roast beef hence the moniker the rib eye of the sky but again it can tough and dry if cooked too fast.

The thighs are tasty the lightest colored and most moist meat on a crane. Cooked rare it tastes just like a ribeye. Red chile powder 1 tsp. Crane can be tough and a challenge to cook.

Season lightly with salt and pepper. Seasoning each side of the crane breasts liberally and put them in a zip lock bag. When you have breasted your sandhill crane you will get two steaks you want to take the time to wash the meat off cut all of the silver skin off and trim any fat from the meat. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees when you are ready to cook the breast melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a pan and sear the breast skin side down to start.