Captain’s Braised Wild Turkey Legs

Josh Dahlke / THE HUNGER

I’ll never stop preaching the value of wild turkey legs in my meat gospel. You’ll get upwards of two pounds of boned-out meat from those “tough” legs. And yes, they are tough—but that’s why you should braise them. Braising is the saving grace for cooking any lean wild game meat.

This braise is easy to throw together and packed with flavor at the finish line. You probably have most of the ingredients in your kitchen, but you might need to make a quick trip to the liquor store to grab a bottle of Captain Morgan spiced rum. Braised wild turkey leg meat is awesome for cold sandwiches, soup, tacos, nachos, or just a quick forkful of protein when you’re famished after a long day.

Ingredients:

• 2 whole wild turkey legs
• Peanut oil
• 2 teaspoons coarse ground salt (sea salt or Kosher salt)
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon chile powder
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 4 whole garlic cloves
• Apple cider
• 2 cups Captain Morgan spiced rum 

Directions: 

1. Pre-heat oven to 250 degrees.
2. Coat turkey legs in dry rub: salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, chile powder, and black pepper.
3. Brown both sides of turkey legs in peanut oil. Use a cast-iron Dutch oven right out of the gate and it’ll have you covered for this entire cooking process. 
4. Reduce 2 cups of Captain Morgan over medium heat until most of the alcohol burns off. This will take around 3-5 minutes. 
5. Add Captain Morgan, apple cider and garlic cloves to Dutch oven with turkey legs. Use just enough apple cider to halfway submerge the legs.
6. Cover Dutch oven and put in pre-heated oven for 3 hours, or until meat is fork tender.
7. Remove turkey legs from Dutch oven, let cool, then pull meat off bones.
8. Eat within 5-7 days or freeze.