Crispy-Tender Buffalo Grouse Legs

Savory, tender, and delicious, this recipe will have you saving all the legs from your next grouse hunt

“Where’s the rest of the bird?!”

This was the question I posed to my hunting buddy on my first grouse trip. He had shot a ruffed grouse shortly after we arrived at camp and had breasted it before bringing it over to me in hopes that I’d cook it up for supper. 

“What do you mean?” he replied, looking consternated. 

“Well, it had legs at one point, didn’t it?” I asked, trying not to sound too judgmental.

I had never shot or cooked a grouse at that point, but I knew there was no way I was going to leave those legs behind. I went and found his gut pile and pulled the legs out myself. 

When I eventually shot a few birds over my Small Münsterländer and began plucking them, his consternation turned into entertainment. “Get a load of this guy!”

I made sure that everyone else who shot birds that weekend gave me their legs too. 

“Really?” they would ask.

“Uh-huh,” I’d reply. “Don’t worry, I’ll clean them for you.”

It was becoming quite a joke; this guy, very new to hunting, wanting to use all of the parts the bird had to offer, rather than just its breast. 

“Gizzards and hearts too? You’re crazy, man.”

They all knew I liked to cook, but thought me pretty eccentric for wanting all of that “trash”. They were razzing me goodnaturedly about it all weekend; that is, until I had collected enough legs to cook. 

Staying back at camp one evening, I slow-cooked all of the legs in pork lard, feet still attached, dipped them in seasoned flour, then deep-fried them until crispy. I made an impromptu Buffalo sauce with some random hot sauce we had kicking around and some of the butter we were saving for breakfast. 

Welcoming everyone back to the smoky, vintage Army tent we used as a camp, I brought out the Buffalo grouse legs and some cold beers. 

Grabbing onto the now-curled feet, each guy in the hunting party dug in, the room going from a cacophonous din to complete silence except for the sucking of grouse bones. 

“This is unbelievable!” cried the guy who had first offered me a grouse, sans legs. “I’ve been throwing these things out for 25 years! I can’t believe how good they are!” 

I sat back contented, watching at least one hunting party that would never waste their grouse legs again. 

This has since turned into an epic tale that gets retold every year when we return to grouse camp in northern Ontario—the other being that time I brought saffron to the north woods to cook a Persian grouse dish over the fire. Sure beats beans and wieners as camp food! 

In terms of preparation, you can definitely skip the brine and the slow cooking step and jump right into the dusting and frying, but you will end up with pretty chewy legs. I actually don’t mind them like this, but the aforementioned steps do make for a much more tender end product that will appeal to more people.