Do y’all eat woodcocks?

[Uptonongood]

I cooked a doodle and bobwhite for lunch yesterday as follows:
Birds skinned. Filleted meat off breast into two medallions. Disjointed thighs intact with legs. I sauteed in butter the pieces for about 2 minutes a side, salted and peppered. Meat was medium rare. Once woodcock (dove, snipe) is well done, it's flavor is stronger and compared by many to "liver". The red meat birds, ducks included, is at its best flavor rare to medium rare. IMO.
Here's another way I cook it. Roasted on high heat until medium rare. Olive oil, salt and pepper. Plucked, not skinned. As gun writer Stephen Bodio wrote about his author friend's comment on woodcock cooking:
"My disgusted French- born gourmand friend Guy de la Valdene, after he read an American recipe for woodcock that involved two cans of cream of mushroom soup and an hour and a half in the oven, wrote (in Making Game in 1990): “As this recipe negates the whole reason for killing the birds in the first place, why not take it a step further and poach the Woodcock overnight in equal parts of catsup, pabulum, and Pepto- Bismol.”
Cooked on high heat, lid down on my gas grill. Smoothered in chanterelles.

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"Meat was medium rare." This is the secret to dark meat game birds including woodcock, doves and ducks. . I filet the breasts, sandwich a slice of jalapeño between them, wrap in bacon and grill to medium rare. Excellent eating!

 

[redneck_billcollector]

Yep, love them. When I was young and we, by we I mean a couple of other guys my age, used to camp out for the weekend during the hunting seasons, hunting rabbit, squirrel, dove, quail, snipe, woodcock and the occasional wood duck, they were my favorite item to eat in camp. Would clean them, season with whatever was at hand, take a small dab of butter out of the cooler, wrap them in tinfoil and stick them in the coals...no set time mind you, I was a kid...take it out and eat it straight from the foil....