Category Archives: Cooking & Food Storage

It seems that there’s intricate science to cooking a phenomenal steak. That’s why the task of cooking a steak yourself can seem quite intimidating. How can it match up with the steaks you’ve had at fine dining restaurants? Thankfully, there are many amazing tips you can use that will improve the flavor of your steak so it can rival a fine dining experience.

Prolong Marination Time

Marinating your steak seems obvious, but this is a part of the process that many people don’t put enough time and effort into. For example, you might have seen a friend marinate a steak for 30 minutes or less. This marination time isn’t long enough for the sauces to soak and seep into the meal. You must allow, at minimum, two hours for your steak to soak in your marinade. Anything less, and you miss out on all that delicious, marinated flavor.

Choose Good Quality Steaks

The simple fact of the matter is that you can’t get a quality flavor without a quality steak. However, there are countless cuts of meat out there that vary in terms of quality. That’s why it’s a good idea to invest in a steak sample box that lets you acquaint yourself with the many cuts of meat out there. In fact, a sample box also makes a fantastic holiday gift idea for the steak lover in your life, even if that’s yourself.

Use Seasoning Packets

If you aren’t confident in your seasoning capabilities, that’s OK because you’re in luck. One of the best tips for improving the flavor of your steak when you don’t know what you’re doing is to use seasoning packets. You might think that doing this is a cop-out, but you’d be surprised to know that many people of all culinary levels rely on seasoning packets from time to time. The most exciting part is that packets allow you to experiment with different blends, opening up a world of flavor.

The outdoor fun that we have while camping builds great memories and bonds. Your campfire is a primary source of warmth at night and a convenient way to cook food. Building your campfire to make meals will take careful consideration and placement to ensure the meals you make are cooked evenly and give you the nutrition you need.

Use a Mixture of Fire-Starter Materials

Numerous materials start fires and keep them going. When setting up a campfire for a meal, you should prepare your tinder, kindling, and firewood so the fire will catch quickly and be easier to keep alive. The tinder should sit at the base of the kindling and firewood formation so the fire begins and spreads easily.

The kindling will be the fastest to burn, so you’ll need to mix it in areas of the firewood where it will catch and spread the flame around the wood. If you need natural materials to start a fire, dry grass for tinder and dead branches work well.

If There Isn’t a Ring for a Firepit, Make One

Having a ring for your firepit is useful for keeping a controlled fire and ensuring you have the correct spacing for making a spit for the campfire. Most campfire pits have rocks or bricks surrounding the space and gravel inside the pit.

These materials will usually be available, but if they’re not, damp soil around the fire should prevent the flames from escaping. When you cook your food, you should have a contained fire to ensure that the flames remain in a focused area and that the food cooks evenly and thoroughly.

Organize the Kindling for the Type of Food

There are numerous foods you may cook over a campfire. You could have a delicious campfire snack such as jerky or a pot of soup made with vegetables and cooked beef. When building your campfire for a meal, you should have the proper setup for the food you cook.

If you plan on making food that sits over the fire, such as kabobs, it’s best to have a spit; you’ll need a keyhole campfire to sit and cook simultaneously. For a campfire to cook something such as a pot of stew, a criss-cross campfire works best, as long as you have a campfire grill to place it on.

Campfires come in numerous sizes and structures, but the best campfires for cooking come in specific designs. These tips will help you create the best fire to make some delicious outdoor sustenance.

Successful fishing requires a combination of the right gear and methods, then a time of trial and error out on the water. Don’t waste all your preparation and work just to let your catch spoil. Make the most of your harvest with these three tips for keeping your caught fish fresh.

Immediately Ice Fish

Putting your fish in ice will help preserve good flavor and prevent the flesh from changing texture. Put ice above, below, and around the fish to maximize the cold surface area. Crushed ice, rather than blocks, will increase the contact between the ice and fish and keep the fish cold more effectively.

Keep your cooler drain open to let the melting ice drain away. Letting the fish sit in water can damage the meat and make it mushy, throwing off the flavor and texture. Be sure to replenish the ice if the levels get low.

Clean the Fish ASAP

The next tip for keeping your fish fresh is to clean it as soon as possible. If you don’t bleed your fish enough or delay gutting it, blood clots can form in the meat.

Rinse the oil from the fish, pat the fish dry, and keep your knife clean between uses to prevent the spread of bacteria. Lay the fish on newspaper and have plenty of newspaper on hand to catch the refuse you’ll clean away.

After removing the scales, cut a V-shape incision into the fish’s belly, carefully avoiding piercing the intestines. Open the fish carcass and remove the entrails. Then, clean out the cavity.

If you want, remove the head by cutting behind the gills. Be sure to clean your cleaning area thoroughly and throw away the newspaper filled with guts, heads, and scales.

Vacuum Seal To Keep Fish Fresh Longer

Once you get home, you can place your fish in the fridge if you plan to cook it in one or two days. Put fish in an airtight container. Frozen raw fish is best eaten within three to six months. One of the best ways to package frozen fish is to vacuum seal it. The vacuum seal will prevent moisture loss and preserve the flavor and texture of the meat.

While a regular vacuum sealer might work, fish has a high water content that can make the process impossible or inefficient. But when you choose a vacuum sealer for fish, you won’t need to worry about the excess moisture. And depending on your device, you can even add a marinade which can improve the fish’s flavor and speed up meal prep when you decide to cook.

If you get a committed fish vacuum, you can also marinate your fish. This will make the fish taste better and aid in meal preparation.

In the modern age, now that hunting isn’t a necessity for most, people have gotten used to the taste of farm animal meat. Game meat often tastes stringy and full of iron due to its minimal fat content and leanness. If you want to cook what you catch without having to endure the earthy flavor, here’s how to remove the gamey flavor from game meat.

Start in the Field

The main way to prevent gaminess is to clean your catch quickly and properly. The blood that remains in the muscles is part of what gives the meat that overpowering iron flavor. In addition, the longer the meat stays hot, the more the enzymes break it down and add to the undesirable taste.

So gutting, hanging, and bleeding your catch is the best way to mitigate as much of that gamey taste as possible so that you don’t have to over-marinate the meat.

Remove the Silver Skin

While the fatty silver skin may add flavor to other types of meat, this is the opposite for wild game. A large portion of that unwanted flavor comes from cooking it in the silver skin. So while you’re gutting and hanging your catch, it’s worth your time to take a small knife and take off that extra membrane.

Soak and Marinate

While there is a lot of debate as to what liquid you should soak your catch in, you’ll want to avoid acidic liquids like lemon or vinegar. While this may get rid of the gamey taste quickly, it will make your meat tougher and stringier than it already is. Salt water and dairy help remove the blood from the tissue that didn’t come out while letting it hang.

Don’t Overcook It

Most seasoned cooks know that steaks on their own don’t need a lot of time to cook, but due to the lack of fat content, wild game cooks even faster. You need only a few minutes on a skillet, pan, or grill, and you don’t want to cook it all the way to well done. While the blood adds to the gamey flavor, overcooking it will make it harder to chew and taste too earthy, so if you’ve followed all the other steps, you won’t have to worry about a bit of blood in the meat.

Now that you know how to remove the gamey flavor from game meat, you can catch and cook like a pro so that you can show off after your next hunt.