Sundance Rivera’s wild game holiday dressing

Sundance Rivera chops a cornucopia of wild game meat. IMAGE COURTEST OF THE AUTHOR

By Ford Walpole

Many people add a unique twist to traditional holiday feasts and in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, wild game harvested in our wonderful woodlands often finds its way on the menu — an appropriate spiritual nod to the holiday meals of our forebears.

Sundance Bear Rivera is well-attuned to the value our region ascribes to wild game and a master at preparing it. He grew up in Summerville and had the opportunity to hunt deer, doves and small game on a large tract bordering Medway Plantation as a child. He frequently joins friends on social hunts on private preserves and last year traveled to Mississippi and Arkansas in pursuit of waterfowl.

Rivera’s father named him for Robert Redford’s character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. “The movie was the first time the anti-hero was applauded in a film and that changed cinema forever,” he says, adding: “Growing up with a strange name didn’t have any negative effects on me. I believe what it teaches you is the ability to interface with every group because your name does not fit you into any particular category. So, it allows you to talk and it prepares you for conversations.”

Sundance has a background as colorful as his name: He earned his bachelor of science degree in psychology and worked as an inner-city counselor in Detroit; this experience inspired him to publish a young adult novel Honey in a Hornet’s Nest. In addition, he worked as an EMT in Johannesburg, South Africa. Coastal Cushion & Canvas out of Shem Creek was but one of his successful entrepreneurial endeavors. Rivera was a member of the final class to complete professional chef training at Johnson & Wales before the college closed its Charleston campus. Sundance interned under Nathalie Dupree and worked under Bob Carter at Peninsula Grill. These days, he offers yacht tours in the harbor aboard his boat Honest Tune.

Rivera’s approach to preparing holiday wild game is both artistic and practical. “Most guys already know how to prepare their proteins,” he says. “The cool thing is helping them with what their meat is paired with and what sauces you can make.” Bird hunters often hunt and harvest a variety of birds throughout the year. With this reality in mind, Sundance developed his unique, signature dish, which he coined Pleasant Peasant Pheasant Dressing. “This dressing is a great way to consolidate their freezers and feed a lot of people in the process,” he explains.

“Some people already are really skeptical about eating wild game, so not having a specific meat in the dressing opens people up to the experience without any apprehension. Again, we are focusing on addressing the problem of an overabundance of bird meat in the freezer,” he says. Sundance typically includes pheasant, quail and chukar to his dressing, but many waterfowl hunters incorporate duck meat. “I make five different types of dressing; sometimes, I add fresh, panned oysters or rabbit. But you should typically go with whatever birds you have in the freezer. This recipe is very forgiving and it doesn’t even matter if the birds are a little freezer-burnt,” Rivera assures.

What fowl you use will determine how much white meat or dark meat you end up with in your dressing. “Migratory fowl have low contractility with a high endurance, which yields more dark meat. On the other hand, chicken and turkey have high contractility and low endurance, so they will have more white meat,” Sundance says. “If you use white meat, it will be drier, but as long as your gravy has the consistency you and your guests are aiming for, then you have won, and you can put in a lot more white meat.”

Ideally, Rivera prefers to age his freshly harvested birds. He credits the late, renowned Edna Lewis, former chef-in-residence at Middleton Place, for emphasizing the importance of this time-honored process. “She liked the birds to age with their heads on; this allows the meat to take on a better flavor. That’s the reason birds are hung for up to two days in a cool, dry place and air-dried after field-dressing. This process has been lost as now we tend to freeze everything right away. Ducks and pheasants are aged; the smaller quail and chukar are typically cleaned in the field. While it is not necessary to age the birds, it certainly maximizes the culinary experience,” Sundance explains.

Rivera created his own sweet tea brine. In a 16-quart stock pot, he places eight tea bags with salt and sugar simmered at 180 degrees. Two pounds of meat are added; the birds are boiled and simmered and then you pick the meat from the bone. He adds a special note to take care of the pin bones, shot bones and splinters. “Do not rush the meat-picking process; if you do, you end up compromising your dish because you might have dangerous bones in it. The legs have the most pin bones, so exercise with caution; this is a great way to involve your children,” he says.

“The star, the prize, of this dish is the game, not the dressing,” Sundance points out. “So, to avoid people steering away from both preparing the meat and making their own cornbread dressing, we have to simplify it. We want to convince people to do something economical and simple. Again, the primary goal is to alleviate the sportsman’s burden of too much meat in the freezer.” To this end, you may use any old box of stuffing mix. Personally, Sundance prefers Chef’s Cupboard Hawaiian Stuffing Mix with Sage and Onion, which has a sweetness to it.

Likewise, “because sauces and gravies can be intimidating, we just have to make sure we don’t overwhelm people by adding too much complexity to the recipe; then, we lose the goal — we might get the readership but not the execution of the dressing. We want to build some groundwork with the home chef so that they understand the process. I make a game-stock and wine gravy. Having the stock nearby allows me to ladle in my stock to thicken the gravy, but you can use a standard house gravy with chicken or turkey stock,” Rivera says.

“You may cook down the carcasses of your game birds, which can be used for a stock, or you can freeze it for later. From the hunter and the chef’s perspective, the most conservation-minded and ethical way is to utilize everything you can from the birds,” he adds.

Sundance reflects on his desire to pursue professional training as a chef, though he never was interested in a long-term career in the food and beverage industry. “I wanted the knowledge to be able to become a better home cook — for the interest of the art and the love of the flavor. I also wanted to teach others and share this knowledge.

Rivera’s Lowcountry roots inspire his cuisine. “I am always trying to make my dishes a little more regional and cultural than what’s out there; for instance, I add oysters to my shrimp and grits for this reason. I enjoy the process of curating the foods, setting up the affair and building memories around it. I love that! And this home with its 45-foot-long professional kitchen affords me the ability to accomplish that in one of the best possible ways,” he says. I was fortunate to visit Sundance’s kitchen and to partake in his mouthwatering dressing as he was preparing it early for a large holiday crowd.

“Food is so interesting because no matter what you know, there are so many things you don’t know. Doctors practice medicine and food is a lot like medicine in that you can practice it your whole life and never completely get it. I am very intuitive, which allows me to create things, for instance, my sweet tea brine. Once you understand the flavor profiles and parameters, much like an artist works with colors and art, you can create numerous, various dishes,” Rivera says.

“I really enjoy doing things that I can cross over, like using the same stock to make gravy. When we do things like that, we have just made it affordable and accessible and are practicing the Old-World craft of food ways,” he reflects. Give your own family and friends a memorable gift and add Sundance Rivera’s simple, yet amazing, meat-filled wild game dressing to your table this holiday season! For questions about preparing game or seafood, or to arrange a harbor tour, contact Sundance at sundancerivera@gmail.com or (843) 460-7855.

Pleasant Peasant Pheasant Dressing (Serves 12-14 people)

Ingredients:

8 tea bags

1 cup sugar

¼ cup of salt

¼ cup of flower

4 boxes of Hawaiian bread roll stuffing

2 sticks unsalted butter

2 large yellow, white, or Vidalia onions chopped

2 tablespoons herbes de Provence

½-2 tablespoons of kosher salt

1 tablespoon of black pepper