Starling Recipes

[geolemer]

Dose anyone know any good starling recipes. I love the taste but my grandma always made them for me, and she is no longer able to make them.
It was always a type of stew she would make out of them, buy any recipe will do.
Has anyone other then myself ever ate starlings. I told a friend about cooking starlings and he just looked at me like I was nuts. O' well his loss.
Also if anyone has a better way to hunt starlings I'm all ears, as of right now I'm using a 1897 Winchester with a cylinder bore.
Thanks for any help.

 

[MCgunner]

I shot 'em out of the barn eaves with an air gun when I was a kid, but I never ate one. I'm sure, being just a bird, they are edible, just not something people normally eat. LOL Just do 'em like dove breasts. Any dove recipe should work. I have a good game book. I'll sometimes substitute a bird, a fish, or an animal species in those recipes and it works fine, normally.

One way I like dove is to wrap the breast with a piece of bacon and kabob 'em with veggies on the grill. I also like to do this with waterfowl, cut the meat in kabob size pieces, a goose breast being bigger than a dove. I hardly ever pick and clean the whole bird, being as most of the edible meat is the breast, especially on a dove sized bird. An exception would be quail. I'll pick the whole bird on rare occasion I get a quail. I have a fedw white wing doves in the freezer that have been picked and cleaned for a future meal, but normally I just breast 'em. Goes quicker when I have a big mess of 'em.

I still have an air gun and it'd deadly. I'd use it on marauding starlings and house sparrows (English sparrows) if I felt the need. They are legal to shoot being imported pests, at least in Texas, along with cow birds. In a survival situation, any bird like this is edible. I normally have better things to eat, though, LOL!

 

[ArmedBear]

God's very own clay pigeons.

No limit, no off-season, plentiful.

I got this from a Google search:

http://www.thehuntinglife.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=34377

Fry some chopped turnips and carrots. Add a little stock and a glass of red wine. Place some starlings or other small birds in the pan. Add a thin purée of boiled potatoes mashed with beaten eggs, dry mustard, and some stock and a little beer. Cover with stock and cook for about 30 minutes, adding some ripe olives near the end.

These guys have a lot of crow recipes. http://www.crowbusters.com/

I've never tried any of them.

Kind of like SSS, there's KKKK. Kick the Karcass into a Konvenient Kanyon.

Also, crows are "game birds", but ravens are off-limits. Now I have yet to find a hunter who knows the difference between the two species... Best to play it safe.

 

[barnetmill]

Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie

Sing a song of sixpence
AKA blackbirds in a pie

Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?
The king was in his counting house counting out his money,
The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey
The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose!

Small birds use to be and probably still are eaten in italy. There must be some recipes around for that dish in europe or even in england.

 

[Bearhands]

What next, parakeet pudding?

 

[Sunray]

Geezuz, some people will eat anything. Mind you, during the Middle Ages, the people would eat anything they could catch.
Pluck 'em. Then fricassee 'em like grouse(there are lots of game cook books. Look in your local public library. Even though starlings aren't considered to be game birds now) or bake 'em in a pie.
This recipe isn't as clear as it should be. It's the 4 and 20 blackbird pie, barnetmill is, um, crowing, about, but starlings will do.
Steep 24 of 'em in cold water with a little vinegar(book doesn't say for how long or how much vinegar. I'd use a splash.). Drain and rinse. Put into a pot large enough to be able to barely cover with water. Season lightly with mace, lemon zest and its juice and a dash of sugar. Simmer until tender replacing the lost liquid with dry red wine or claret.
Make pastry for a large double crust pie. A glass cake dish is good.
Remove and bone the wee birds, keep the liquid and put into a deep oven casserole lined with pastry. Make a mealy roux, blend it into the liquid until thickened, season with salt and pepper to taste, add a pinch of grated nutmeg andpour over the meat. Cover with pastry, seal the edges, score the top and bake in a hot oven(400ish) for 10 minutes, reduce heat(350) and bake for 45 minutes or until evenly browned. No I haven't tried it.
"...in Europe..." Worked with a Portugese guy long ago who brought some sparrows for lunch one day. Tried it. It was awful.

 

[TimboKhan]

When I was a kid, me and my friend would go down to the river and shoot Robins with our BB guns. Then we would "pluck" them, impale them on a stick and roast them over an open fire. Note, please, that I mention nothing about gutting, deboning, beheading, de-footing or anything else.

Not shockingly, they tasted horrible, but my friend and I were little savages and would eat them anyway to justify the fire. Perhaps done properly, they would have been OK. Being that my days as a savage are over, I doubt I shall ever find out.

 

[NickEllis]

ArmedBear:

The difference between Raven and Crow is fairly apparent in flight: ravens have a diamond tail, and crows have a flat tail. When they are on the ground, a raven is quite larger.

Also, the ravens have a distinctive croak.

An example of a raven in flight:

Example of a crow:

 

[qajaq59]

During WW II the government put out recipes for black birds, but I doubt anyone really ate them. It was easier to raise a few chickens like we did. Meat was rationed then, so maybe that was the reason?

 

[Savage Shooter]

I told a friend about cooking starlings and he just looked at me like I was nuts.

take a wild guess what look I'm giving to my computer screen.
I would personally have to be starving and I mean STARVING to eat one of those filthy creatures. They carry quite a few dieseases I would much rather have a nice dove or quail or best of all turkey. mmm... @#%$ now I'm hungry:banghead:. I guess to each his own.

 

[bobby n.]

rat on a stick rat on a stick ...monty python humor... omg i cant believe i wrote that. ahh sleep deprivation

 

[buck460XVR]

ain't never been that hungry...........yet.

 

[CoRoMo]

I'm going to have to send an email to my family with a link to this thread.

I have experience here.

 

[280shooter]

Nasty birds. they do carry all sorts of critters and diseases..shoot and burn,,

or wear rubber gloves,while handling them..

 

[rondog]

When I was just a kid, very early 60's era, our side of town was infested with starlings. Big flocks of 'em, doing lots of damage. I vividly remember squads of the local police converging on our neighborhood with shotguns at dusk, and blasting thousands of them out of their roosting trees with coordinated firing. It was awesome! True story.

Don't recall anybody eating the stinking things though.

 

[CoRoMo]

Okay then, here's my story.

When I was a young boy, I went camping with a friend on my uncle's farm.
Thought we could 'live off the land', so we took no food with us.
I shot a sparrow with my BB gun and cooked the breast over our fire at the end of a coat-hanger wire.
It wasn't wonderful, but it made me feel like Grizzly Adams.
My friend decided to cook an ear of corn from my uncle's field. My family kids me to this day about that story.

There. Now you know.
When I'm in the mood, that "hunting story" has many tantalizing details that keeps one on the edge of his seat.