Outdoorsman in the kitchen: He’s got game

Her father is Denny Corriveau, a chef, hunter, educator, and all-around advocate of cooking with wild game. His daughter likes to help him prepare dishes such as tourtiere, the French Canadian game pie served with cranberry sauce. As the WildCheff, Corriveau offers cooking classes, workshops, and food demonstrations devoted to spreading the gospel of game. The Amesbury resident also caters private dinners, writes cookbooks, and has his own line of game seasonings.

Corriveau throws a small flock of quail onto the grill and the air explodes with the aroma of cinnamon and chilies. Though game is often smothered with gravy or tossed into a pot of chili, that doesn’t happen here. Bright, clean flavors are typical of this chef’s food. He develops recipes that adjust for stronger tastes without pretending they don’t exist. “You don’t want to mask the flavors,’’ he says. “You want to highlight them and make them shine.’’

Perhaps the biggest challenge in preparing wild meat and poultry is to avoid the unpleasant gamey flavor. “Game tends to be more lean because the animals work for a living,’’ says Corriveau. Even so, the little fat on the meat is strong. He is splashing ground buffalo sausage with olive oil infused with blood orange. That will tone down the dominating taste of the animal fat. What Corriveau doesn’t hunt himself he orders from special suppliers or farms such as Cavendish Game Birds in Springfield, Vt.

Among his fans is New England Patriots offensive lineman Matt Light. The WildCheff cooked at the Light Foundation’s Celebrity Shoot-Out fund-raiser. In an e-mail Light writes: “Our participants had rave reviews of the food he created for sampling!!’’ An avid outdoorsman, Light also uses Corriveau’s recipes and seasonings at home.

The chef-hunter does not roast haunches over an open hearth in a log cabin — at least not on a typical day. He does most of his cooking in the tidy, modern kitchen of his Amesbury home, where floral patterns adorn the curtains and the smell of a scented candle mixes with the bouquet of wild boar kebabs. On the skewers are chunks of McIntosh apples that soften, sweeten, and develop a pleasant char when grilled. He sets the aromatic quail on mixed greens tossed with an orange-muscat vinaigrette, fresh black cherries, raw corn, and crumbled goat cheese.

Most Americans are more likely to encounter wild game wandering across their lawn than to see it appear on the dinner table. But Corriveau is encouraged by the popularity of buffalo, which is now available at many supermarkets. His buffalo sausage flatbread, baked with commercially prepared naan, is made entirely from widely available ingredients, making it a good gateway dish. When he makes it for guests, he says, “I’ll slice off a piece and hand it to them and they’ll be like ‘wow!’ There you go. It’s about educating people, exposing them to something that’s just not familiar.’’

The chef’s eating philosophy is surprisingly similar to what you might hear at a farmers’ market. “My big thing is know where your food comes from, eating sustainable food sources that can regenerate themselves,’’ he says. “You remember the Barbara Mandrell song ‘I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool?’ I like to say wild game was organic when organic wasn’t cool.’’

For more information, go to www.wildcheff.com.

Aaron Kagan can be reached at aaronwkagan@gmail.com.